Old Roads: Unstrung Harmonies
by tjadis
Summary: It was supposed to be a diversion, a pleasant summer spent in Denerim, but there were all sorts of games afoot... Part 3 of "Old Roads". PC/Zevran, PC/Cullen, PC/Zevran/Cullen. Multiple perspectives. Post-game.
1. The Scene of the Crime

**One: The Scene of the Crime**

**

* * *

  
**

_Author's Note:_

_This story follows "Waking Hours" and "Fearful Symmetries", and it will __**not**__ make any sense if you haven't read the first two, which are both available on my profile. Same caveats hold: I've grabbed the setting and gone scampering into the deep woods with it, which means there's some stuff that wasn't in the game at all, some stuff significantly different than the game, and other differences. _

_This one just won't leave me __**alone**__. And while I thought I was going to be able to do just one more story to wrap everything up, once I started writing, I realized that there are more stories. "Unstrung Harmonies" will take place mostly in Denerim. The fourth story, tentatively titled "Quiet Foxes", will focus on the Tower. The fifth story, tentatively titled "Pitiless Games", will mostly take place in Amaranthine.  
_

_Updates will be slightly sporadic, but I'll post chapters as I finish them._

_

* * *

  
_

_Kathil:_

She'd once heard Eamon describe Denerim as a Mabari, loyal and stubborn and dangerous.

It was true, as such things went. Though right now, with all her flags flying and people lining up along the avenues because they'd heard that King Alistair was returning after his trip to Highever and Waking Sea (and that the hero of Ferelden traveled with him, and _Maker_ she was tired of that sobriquet; it reminded her far too much of Loghain) Denerim seemed a little bit more like a trap than anything else.

It didn't help that, riding next to her, Zevran's hands kept straying towards his weapons.

"Nobody is going to attack us," she said, trying to sound sure of herself.

He pointed his chin at a nearby building. "Third floor, second window from the north end. It has sightlines of the whole procession, my Grey Warden. The crowd, there, where it is clustered. It might be a natural grouping, or it might be camouflage for a hidden archer. The alley ahead and to the left is large enough to hide thirty men. The crowd limits our movements, the noise deafens us to danger. I have worked in such situations, before."

Maker's Breath, he was _worried_.

"An honor guard of forty-two warriors, all of them veterans of Fort Drakon and the attack on the city," she countered. "Alistair's personal guard, who we've both tested the mettle of ourselves. Yvrenne and Lorn, who smell danger before it has a chance to happen. Leliana, who can put an arrow through a hurlock's eye at three hundred paces. Cullen and Alistair, both of whom have such _big_ swords. Me." She smiled at him. "And you."

Zevran relaxed a bit, the tattoos that swept down each side of his face bending a bit as he smiled. "Old habits, no? Put that way, we _are_ a most fearsome company. This is simply not the way I enjoy entering a city. Much too…exposed."

He _was_ worried. But the gates to the Palace were looming before them, and soon they were inside and the iron porticullis closed. It was familiar, by now, this rush of grooms and servants taking horses and bags, Kathil darting out of the way of a harried-looking young woman who was trying to lead four horses at once, none of whom looked very happy. Through the crowd, she could see Alistair consulting with Emris. Lorn was at her hip, sticking close to her.

Leliana was pouting at a woman who was trying to take her pack away from her. "What do you mean, you have to take it? We're going to be meeting the Princess Consort in a few minutes, I have to _change_."

_Oh sodding little hells. Meeting the Princess Consort._

Kathil hoped beyond hope that the woman had mellowed a little in the last three years.

"No time," Alistair said. He was almost vibrating. "Rima will meet us in the hall. Come _on_."

It had been nine weeks since Alistair had seen his wife and his son, and he was very well _allowed_ to be impatient. Kathil slipped her hand into the crook of Leliana's arm. "You're beautiful no matter what you're wearing, sweetling." She lowered her voice. "Let's get this over with and let Alistair see his family, all right?"

The bard yielded, letting go of her pack. The servant bustled off with it, and Leliana sighed. Zevran was already heading after Alistair, and when Kathil glanced behind her she saw Cullen at her shoulder. She plucked up her courage and stepped forward, the broke into a jog, the straps of her armor protesting a bit. _Must remember to go visit Wade, if he's in town. He can replace the straps._ It was a job that needed doing every few years, and it was long overdue on this particular set of dragonskin armor.

They caught up to Alistair and Zevran at the great doors that led into the palace. Kathil tried to tell herself that it was all right, it had been three years since she had seen Rima—

"_You," Rima said as she turned to see Kathil standing in the doorway._

"_Me," Kathil replied. "You wanted to see me?"_

_Alistair's intended waved at her maids. "Leave us. Close the doors." When they were gone, and it was just the mage and the oldest daughter of an eastern bann, Rima crossed her arms. "I want to get something very clear between us."_

_Kathil remembered discipline taught by long years in the Tower, and did not move. "And that is?"_

_One of the problems was that Rima was _smart_, and she missed absolutely _nothing_. "I know what you and Alistair were to one another. And I know that it hasn't ended between you."_

"_We haven't—"_

"_You _haven't_." There was a savage expression in the noblewoman's bright green eyes. "There are so many ways a man can cheat without ever taking his pants off. I've seen the looks you two give each other. I do not care if you _are_ the great hero, mage. If I ever find out that you two have so much as touched each other once Alistair and I are married, I will tear your eyes from your skull. Are we clear?"_

_Kathil actually took a step back at the fury that was fairly radiating from the woman. "Clear as dawn, my lady," she said, and the ugly wound in her soul was bleeding again, this still-incomprehensible weight of _it wasn't supposed to be this way, it wasn't supposed to hurt this badly_ weighing on her, and she was so very tired, trying to bear up under the burden of all she had lost._

—this was going to be a disaster, wasn't it?

But she was here, and Leliana had her arm and she looked so excited to meet Alistair's wife, and Zevran fell in on her other side and there was just the _slightest_ little smirk on his lips. They walked down the large corridor to the Hall of the Landsmeet, the de facto throne room. Kathil had fought a duel in here once, with a man twice her size who had twenty years more battle experience than she'd had.

Rima waited at the end of the hall, a blanket-wrapped bundle in her arms.

She had hair the color of late summer wheat, and she was still one of the most beautiful women that Kathil had ever met. If anything, four years and becoming a mother had only added a certain maturity to that beauty. As well as that look in her eyes when she looked at Alistair, as if there were nobody in the world but him.

_She'll do nicely,_ Alistair said in Kathil's memory. _She's a practical sort._

And Alistair was up on the dais with his arms around his wife, and he kissed her and then the baby, saying something about how much he'd missed her and _wow_ Duncan was _huge_ and what had they been _feeding_ him while he'd been gone? "And oh. Rima, here." He let go of Rima and turned back to them. "This is Leliana, and Zevran, the quiet one in back is the Grey Warden Cullen, and you probably remember Kathil and Lorn."

Once upon a time, his expression would have been open and unguarded. Now, it looked like he had at least _some_ inkling that there was possibly trouble afoot. Rima looked at all of them in turn, and when she got to Kathil the air in the room seemed to turn into ice.

"I remember," she said, and the Princess Consort's voice was utterly neutral. "To what do we owe the honor of this visit?"

There was nothing she could say, and fortunately Leliana fluttered forward and dimpled at Rima, dropping a perfect and precise curtsey. "We've come to visit you and the new heir, your Highness," she said, and her Orlesian accent was quite a bit thicker than usual. "And the high season in Denerim is so lovely, is it not, with all of the balls at the estates?"

And Zevran chimed in, his voice light, "We did not have a chance to enjoy ourselves when we were last, no? And certainly not in such beautiful company." That earned him a dark look from Alistair, but Rima had now transferred her attention away from Kathil, and the air was warming again.

"But I am sure that you and Alistair have many things to catch up on," Leliana said. (And _why_ was she speaking as if she had just come from the Orlesian court?) "We know our way around, I think, and if not there are all these guards who are so _very_ helpful. Let us not keep you."

There was a small smile lurking around the corners of Rima's mouth. "We will retire, yes. Well met, gentlemen. Ladies." She spared one small, cold glance for Kathil and then turned, and Alistiar was taking her arm and they were walking away together, talking in a low voice, guards trailing after them.

"Grey Wardens, this way?" That was Emris, and it was a strange sort of relief to see his dour, round face. "I can show you to your rooms."

They followed him out of the hall. "Where is Yvrenne?" Kathil asked.

"With the Tranquil," was Emris's reply. "She is close to whelping, and they wanted to make sure that she hasn't come to any harm. We weren't supposed to be gone _quite_ so long."

"Will she be all right?" Cullen asked.

Emris chuckled, and the sound was startling, coming from him. "She is tough, and she's done this before. She'll be fine. I'm mostly relieved of duty until she whelps, however. I just have to show you to your rooms and then go hover over Yvrenne."

A few minutes later, they were deposited in the guest wing (with Cullen in the room next to the one that she and Zevran shared and Leliana on the other side) in a room with the most ridiculously large bed Kathil had ever seen. Their bags were already here, neatly placed in a corner, and Kathil fell facefirst onto the bed with a groan. "Maker's _Balls_. I'd almost forgotten how much that woman hates me."

Zevran sat down next to her, and the bed moved a bit under his weight. "It is only natural, yes? The former lover shows up to threaten the happiness of her home. The beautiful, mysterious Grey Warden mage, the hero, the woman who she knows once romped so happily with her husband, she is suddenly there and the princess jumps to conclusions."

Kathil remembered a conversation that took place about half a year ago, Alistair nearly stuttering and her own heart bleeding and everything so cold and lonely. "I don't blame her, honestly. I was awful to her when she first got here, and she is many things but stupid isn't among them. Well. Not my problem." She rolled over and put her hands beneath her head. "Alistair's problem. I plan on being _ruthlessly_ polite."

"And Leliana will be the Orlesian play-pretty," Zevran said, lying down so his body curved around Kathil's head. Lorn, having grown tired of investigating the edge of the room, jumped up on the bed and settled down at the foot of it. "And I will be the Antivan fop, I think. Cullen…well, I think Cullen is not good at these games, so we will leave him out, yes? But between our lovely bard and my own talents, we may be able to keep the good princess distracted."

She freed one arm and draped it over his hip. "Good plan. And, hopefully, she'll figure out that I am _not_ after her husband. Not any more, at least." She raised her head, trying to see the window. "I wonder if I can talk someone into showing me where I can get a hot bath in this place. Surely that has to be one of the things you can get in this pile."

"And if not, there is always the Pearl," Zevran said.

She grinned. "Some day, I am going to tell everyone that most of the times you headed to the Pearl by yourself, it was just for a _bath_."

"You will ruin my reputation, my Gray Warden." He moved so he could kiss the sensitive skin of her neck. "And not _all_ of the times I went there were only for bathing." She felt his teeth graze her skin, just a little, perfectly restrained.

"You are a very _distracting_ man. Bath now. Other things later. I am _grimy_. You too, Lorn, while we're at it." She sat up, and the Mabari whined. "Yes, you have to."

He wagged his stubby tail, cocking his head appealingly. Hadn't she told the healer once that he was a warhound and he was _supposed_ to smell like this?

"But this is the palace, and if you smell good here—well, not quite so much like several dogs all at once, anyway—I'm sure you will be able to con _everyone_ into giving you most of their dinners, not just Cullen," she said.

The dust-knight gives him all the _best_ biscuits, said Lorn's lolling tongue. All right. Bath.

When she went out into the corridor, the guard directed the three of them to the baths, and oh it was _wonderful_ to be able to soak the sweat and dirt and smell of horse off of her skin. She put thoughts of Rima far out of her mind. _Worry about it later._

*****

_Alistair:_

"How _could_ you? How _dare_ you do this, bring her back _here_?"

He caught her shoulders in his hands. "Rima. My love. I can explain."

Rima had handed Duncan to a nurse when they'd come back to their chambers, banished the guards. It wasn't going to keep her voice from carrying through the whole wing, but at least they had _some_ privacy to have this argument in. "Oh, you can _explain_, can you? Go running off to Waking Sea right after Duncan is born on some errand that has to do with _her_, and then you're three weeks late and you have her with you? I _do_ look forward to hearing this."

"Ah. Rima, it really isn't what you think." The problem with loving women with brains was that sometimes, you had to be _very_ careful about what you said. He searched for the right words. "You know I owe Kathil my life, several times over. I had a chance to make her blood family acknowledge her existence, and I did. We're late because there was some…difficulty while we were there, with the Orlesian Grey Wardens."

There was still suspicion on her face. "What kind of difficulty?"

(Kathil, standing shirtless in front of twelve Grey Wardens and him, showing them her nearly ruined shoulder, her chin lifted in an attitude of _bring it on, gentlemen_.)

"Grey Warden business, Rima. Anyway, there was a darkspawn cell close by, and we went out to take care of it. Kathil was badly wounded. Emris and Yvrenne, too. We couldn't travel for a few weeks. I swear that I came back as quickly as I could, love."

The suspicion in Rima's eyes was undimmed. "And you brought her back here why?"

"She wanted to visit, Rima," he said. "She wanted to see Duncan."

"Well, she's _seen_ him. And now she can go back to the Tower or wherever else they're keeping mages these days." Her body was tense as a drawn bowstring. "Tell her to _leave_."

Maker's Breath, what on earth could he say to _that_? "Well, I could. But I think Zevran would go with her, and didn't you say you wanted to learn more about Antiva?" _Well, at least all the gruesome and deadly parts._

Ah, _that_ expression he knew altogether too well, the muscles of her jaw firming just slightly, her lips pursing. "They're together?"

"Er. Yes. Very, _very_ much so. And just because you haven't asked, Rima, _nothing happened_ between Kathil and I on the road." He caught her gaze with his, tried to somehow press honesty into every line of his body. "Nothing."

And it was true, so very _true_, and he remembered the deep scars on the mage's shoulder, the twist at the corner of her mouth, and her declaring that _Cullen is my Templar_ and everything that had come free in him at that moment. Remembered thinking _maybe_ when he'd left on the trip and then realizing that the answer was now _no_.

Remembered that what he had here was sweeter by far.

Miracle of miracles, Rima relaxed. Just a little. Just enough. "You have to know that I'm going to ask Emris and make sure you're telling the truth, you know."

"Ask away. She and the elf kept him up late into the night just as much as the rest of us." He grinned at her. "The two of them are _shameless_."

"Hm." There was a world of _we'll see_ in that syllable. "What about the other Grey Warden? Cullen, you said?"

This was a _far_ safer topic. "Former Templar. Personally sworn to Kathil…well, it's a long story, but he's her personal watcher. No idea what she's going to do with him when she goes back to the Tower, to be honest. He's an odd case, but Emris has taken a liking to him."

"I trust Emris's taste in people more than yours." And Rima was smiling at him, which was a minor miracle in itself.

He gave her a hopeful look. "Are we done fighting now? Is it time for kissing and making up? I missed you, Rima."

"Oh, _you._" Then she was kissing him, and he discovered that it was indeed time for making up. He wasn't _quite_ forgiven, but _Maker_ he had missed her, he hadn't realized quite how much he'd missed her.

_Luckiest bastard in the Maker's creation, I am._

Rima, he hoped, agreed.

*****

_Cullen:_

Among the very many experiences he'd never had before: being in a palace.

It was big in a different way from the Circle Tower; the palace _rambled_ where the Tower mostly went around in circles. The rooms here were on a different scale, as well; or, at least, the rooms were less aggressively divided up by shelves stuffed with books and scrolls and all kinds of other things.

And there was a wizened little woman who unapologetically bossed him around, made him give her all of his dirty clothes and ordered him into a bath. And when he came back, he ran into Kathil and Zevran and Lorn in the hall, all of them damp and with their hair clinging to their heads, and the only thing awkward about it was how _not_ awkward it was.

(He was getting comfortable with this—with them. He thought that should probably worry him. Duty was not supposed to be _comfortable_.)

Kathil had a few shadows in her eyes, and Cullen thought that maybe they had something to do with the look of hatred that the Princess Consort had given her earlier. But before he had a chance to ask, they had to get dressed for dinner, and even though Alistair assured them that this was the least amount of formality he could get away with, the meal was enormous and long and before it was over Cullen was working hard at not nodding off in his chair, sitting next to Kathil.

It was strange, that people seemed to be able to recognize a Templar when they saw one. Kathil wore her mage robes, the fancy ones that she always wore when she wanted to leave the indelible impression of _mage_. (Because mages were all dangerous and they were all exactly the same and the mage robes were uniform and camouflage in one.) When they walked down the hall, even though he was not in armor but instead in something like the uniform he'd seen Greagoir wearing a number of times (shirt that suggested tabard, dark trousers, boots, gloves, sword), people who passed them would see her and tense, their mouths tightening.

Then their eyes would stray to him walking at her shoulder and two paces behind, and they would _relax_. And smile. At _him_.

He honestly wasn't sure quite what to think.

But they got through the dinner, and he might have been imagining things, but the looks that the Princess Consort directed at Kathil became a bit less icy after Zevran leaned over and murmured something into Kathil's ear, and she'd blushed and told the elf that he was a terrible man. The Princess Consort didn't look like she was a woman who missed much, and she surely hadn't missed _that_.

Then he was back in his own room, in a bed _far_ too big for comfort, and he slept like the dead until he was woken by pounding on the door.

Cullen was out of bed before he was even half awake, grabbing his sword, because middle-of-the-night knockings were _never_ good things. He yanked the door open, thinking to see Zevran, or maybe Leliana—

It was Emris.

"Put some clothes on," the King's guard told him. "You're not going to need the sword. And come with me."

Blinking, he went to find some pants, then followed Emris down the hall. By the time he had his tongue sorted out enough to ask where they were going, they were in the part of the palace that housed the stables and kennels, and he was in a small room with three other people, two women and one man.

Emris opened a door to an adjoining room and vanished through it.

When he came back, he had something dark in his hands, which he promptly deposited into Cullen's. "Don't drop it," he said, and went back though the door.

The thing was surprisingly heavy for its small size, warm and alive and damp with birthwater, and somewhere in Cullen's sleepy mind he realized that this was a _puppy_.

And he _finally_ realized what it _meant_.

The puppy snuffled at his fingers, blunt muzzle seeking, and it was blind and very unlovely and Cullen cradled it to his chest. Emris was bringing out more puppies, and there was a Tranquil in the room now who had a square of cloth which he rubbed on Cullen's neck and then on the puppy's wet skin. "Only a few more minutes," Emris said. "They have to go back to Yvrenne before they get too cold. Make sure you touch them all over, paws especially."

The puppy didn't seem to object to him touching it, to him tracing fingers along its legs and to its paws. When Cullen touched its muzzle, it made a soft sighing sound and latched on to his smallest finger for a moment, then seemed to fall abruptly asleep.

Emris took the puppy from him, and the Tranquil came to him with what looked like a cross between an amulet and a locket. It was oblong, with holes in it through which he could see a scrap of the fabric that the Tranquil had rubbed on him and the pup a few minutes earlier. "You must wear this for the first six weeks of your Mabari's life," the Tranquil said in that monotone that never failed to make a shiver go down Cullen's spine. "It has been enchanted to identify your Mabari and to help the imprinting process along."

"I—um. Thank you." Was there anything _else_ he could say?

Emris had finished taking the puppies back to Yvrenne, and was shooing the others out. "I'll walk back with you," Emris said. "It's entirely possible to get lost in the halls, if you're unfamiliar with them." He esorted Cullen out of the kennels and into the palace proper, walkin through long hallways lit only by the occasional lamp.

Cullen finally found his tongue. "Emris …why _me_?"

The older man smiled, just a little. "Yvrenne insisted that you needed a pup. A _specific_ pup, no less, one of the two bitch puppies. The Tranquil have been planning on sending the Templars a few breeding pairs anyway, to bolster their strength, so one of the Tranquil who specializes in Mabari will be returning to the Tower with you at the end of the summer. That's about when the puppies will be weaned." They passed a pair of guards, who nodded to Emris and to Cullen. "You should come by every day. Afternoons are usually good, since Yvrenne always gets a bit tired of her pups about then and is more than happy to let us take them off her hands while she goes to stretch her legs. The Tranquil will teach you everything you need to know."

"I will. And—thank you."

Emris thumped him on the shoulder. "You're welcome, Warden. Here you are. Sleep well."

Not that Cullen _did_, but he did try.

*****

_Zevran:_

When the dreams came—

For they _did_ come, triggered by scents, sights, the feeling of being surrounded by hundreds of watchful gazes, the very _public_ nature of their appearance here in Denerim. There was a reason he had gone back to Antiva after the Archdemon, and it had not just been because he had missed the food.

_Packed floor to ceiling in makeshift bunks made out of old crates, in a warehouse with no windows, baking in the Antivan summer sun. The choking smell of the tanners, underlaid by the smell of sweat and terror and shit. Boys and girls, elves and humans, and always the watchers (women with hard edges and scarred men)—all of them roasted and sweated and it was not safe to sleep in more than snatches. _

_It was paradise compared to what came next._

Kathil was asleep. Lorn snored on the floor at the foot of the bed, on a pillow made especially for him. Zevran listened to the sounds of the palace, faraway murmurs, a dog barking, the muffled moans of a pair of people having an assignation in the shadowed courtyard below the window.

No threats. Not right now, at least.

It somehow failed to lighten his mood. He slipped out of bed and went silently to the window. Lorn stirred in his sleep but did not waken. The wall below the window would be difficult to climb down, but he could if it were needful. He evaluated sightlines—there were good ones to several windows across the courtyard, to the roof. He could almost feel those invisible lines that would draw arrows onward.

He wondered if he might convince his Grey Warden to cut her visit to Denerim short. Though he did not _relish_ the idea of returning to the Tower, he did not feel nearly this exposed there. He had no quarrel with the Templars, the mages could be reasonable company when they forgot their fear and their obedience, and he rather thought there was going to be some rather _interesting_ trouble when they got there.

His Grey Warden intended to set the Circle on its ear when she arrived. That was going to be worth watching.

But what was there to worry about here? So they were exposed—that was nothing new. There would be compensations. Dancing, music, watching Alistair attempt to deal with his wife's indignation at Kathil's presence, all would be amusing.

Still. He was uneasy.

"_Listen."_

_The two Crow trainees who were sparring circled each other. He glanced at Ville, sitting next to him. She was twice his age at twenty-six, delicately pretty, and only her randomly darting eyes betrayed the fact that she was completely blind. "To what?"_

"_How they breathe, how they move. Just _listen, _Zevran."_

_He closed his eyes, and focused. Luisa's breathing was ragged, a hitch in it like he heard when she would invite another trainee into her bunk. Orphene, facing her, breathed more deeply and regularly, but there was a whining tremble at the beginning of each breath. It took him a little longer to separate the sound of their feet—they were matched in height and weight, but Orphene's steps were short, and Luisa's feet dragged just a bit._

_He could almost see the fight, even with his eyes closed. Muscle and sinew swept blades through the air, their movements echoed off the walls, off the gathered Crow trainees who were watching. _

_He heard fear, in both of them._

_Orphene and Luisa shared their bed, more often than not. They had been fighting for almost an hour, evenly matched in skill and determination, and when he'd had his eyes open he hadn't seen the terror in both of them. Something ended here today, in this warehouse with sawdust beneath their feet. _

_Ville's mouth was at his ear. "Orphene will lose."_

_And just like that, he heard the rhythm of Luisa's footsteps alter slightly. There was the shearing sound of a blade entering flesh, Orphene gasping and falling, the quiet splash of blood almost drowned out by the murmurs that were rising in the room. _

_He opened his eyes to see Luisa standing over Orphene's body. "How did you know?" he asked Ville. "It wasn't supposed to be a fight to the death." Orphene's eyes were glazed, and she was not breathing. _

_There was a grim look on Ville's face. "I overheard Orphene speaking to Luisa last night. She wanted to take her and run. That is how love ends, boy. With someone dead."_

_He had reason to remember Ville's statement, later._

But he was no longer an Antivan Crow, and the past did not matter except on nights such as these.

He studied the sightlines, the only meditation that the Crows ever taught, and waited.


	2. Within, Without

**Two: Within, Without**

**

* * *

  
**

_Alistair:_

He wasn't _quite_ sure he was believing what he was hearing. "You're doing _what_, Eamon?"

His uncle's grey eyes met Alistair's. "Isolde needs to be away from Redcliffe, Alistair. She is not doing well, not after we had to send Connor away. Besides, it's time to let Teagan officially lead Redcliffe. He's been doing it in all but name for a couple of years."

"The place just won't be the same without you, but you have to know you're always welcome here," he said. "It's so strange to think of Teagan taking Redcliffe. How's that pretty girl he married?"

"Kaitlyn is doing well. She hasn't had a child yet, but none of us are worried." Eamon smiled faintly. "I'll send word to Isolde that she should join us. She should be here just in time for the height of summer. I'm hoping that the dances will be distracting."

Alistiar hoped so, too. He and his aunt had never gotten along, but she wasn't a bad person, and having to send Connor to the mages had been a blow to her. To Eamon, too. They had only ever had Connor. "The Amaranthines are hosting a masque, I'm told. A proper Orlesian one. Though I'm starting to wonder if the Orlesians haven't _quite_ overstayed their welcome. The Grey Wardens in Ferelden number nearly a full hundred, even without them. "

"You speak as if something's happened, Alistair." Eamon was looking thoughtful, and a little surprised.

"It did." He waved his hand, trying to dispel the question he could see on Eamon's face. "It's a long story. I just…don't think the Orlesian Grey Wardens are as neutral politically as I thought they were." He sighed. "I _hate_ how complicated sodding _politics_ makes everything. It was all so much easier when it was all, Alistair there's a darkspawn horde and an Archdemon that need killing, be a dear and help."

"And now you've learned one of the first rules of politics," Eamon said. "There is no such thing as a neutral party. What are you going to do about them?"

"That…sort of depends. I'm hoping to get Kathil to convince them to go home."

Eamon's eyebrows rose. "Really."

"Yep." At his uncle's disbelieving look, he said, "Look, _I_ can't actually send them away. Not without creating some Maker-forgotten law that's just going to get misinterpreted in a few years. I'm not really a Grey Warden any more." (Except for the darkspawn blood in his veins, except for the dreams, except for the unceasing hunger, _except_.) "Kathil never officially gave up being a Grey Warden, though. If she wants to, she can get them to leave. She could step up and become the Warden-General in Ferelden, especially since Montclair just died."

Eamon was giving him a familiar narrow-eyed look that meant _I can see what you're trying to pull, Alistair_. "I appreciate your faith in her, Alistair. But if she wanted to be Warden-General, she wouldn't have disappeared for years. And if she's not Warden-General, she has no more power than any other Grey Warden."

He gave Eamon a half-smile. "That's why you have to help me change her mind. She's going to be here for the summer, and Maker knows I've _never_ been able to change her mind on anything. She trusts you, Eamon. You got her to stand up in the Landsmeet."

"I told her only the truth. You couldn't do it, I couldn't do it, and it had to be her. I don't consider that changing her mind about anything."

"You didn't hear her panicking about it for days beforehand," Alistair said. "I thought Shale was going to squish her to make her quit. I mean, don't get me wrong, she was _brilliant_, but there's not a lot of public speaking involved in growing up in the Tower."

"And there's another problem." Eamon folded his arms. "Seems I heard a rumor that she's highly placed in the Circle these days."

"Ah. That. I was sort of hoping…" Alistair took a breath. "I mean, it shouldn't be that much a problem, I don't think the Grey Wardens care. The Circle shouldn't care that much. Will they?"

"It's the Circle. Hard to tell what they're going to do." His uncle was giving him a dark look. "All right. I'll try. But if this sets the cat among the pigeons…"

He clapped Eamon on the shoulder. "I'm a king. Isn't that what we _do_? Come on, Eamon. There's a pair of mugs waiting to be filled with ale in the kitchens, and our names are on them. Possibly literally."

*****

_Leliana:_

She swept into Kathil's room, slamming the door open dramatically. "Kathil _Amell_. You are in _trouble_."

The mage was sitting cross-legged on a cushion on the floor, her back against the bedpost, reading. Her face was taking on a hunted sort of look. "What now?" Across the room, Lorn raised his head warily.

Leliana stalked forward. "Zevran told me that you had the _temerity—_" she poked Kathil's forehead with her index finger, hard—"to miss your appointment with the seamstress."

"I was _busy_, Lei. The archivist—"

"Is _not_ about to die of old age any time soon, and if you don't have a fitting, you won't have anything to wear to any of the dances. Or have you forgotten?" She folded her arms. "I will _not_ allow you to wear armor to a masque."

"I was going to polish it," the mage muttered.

Oh, this woman was _exasperating_ sometimes. She looked like a little girl who'd just been scolded for stealing cookies. Reluctance, embarrassment—and was that just a little fear?

Long _past_ time to do this, then.

Leliana gentled her voice. "Dearest. Do you forget that you are, in the scheme of this court, a bit notable? You are seen as one of the supporters of Alistair's reign, you are a well-placed Circle mage, and there are more than a few who will be hoping to gain favor with you. Everyone will be watching you. You need clothing to match your station. _Beautiful_ clothing."

"I've seen what you consider beautiful clothing, Leliana." Kathil shook her head. "It's lovely, but it won't suit me in the least. Really. Armor, or robes if I really can't have armor."

She considered her friend. What in the name of Andraste was _wrong_ with her? She'd gone shopping with Leliana several times and had giggled over pretty scraps of fabric, though Kathil had usually avoided actually buying anything, claiming she wanted to save their hard-won silvers for more practical things. And now money was no object…

Then Kathil's right hand was slipping towards her left shoulder, an unconscious shielding gesture.

_Ah._

"Dearest." She dropped to her heels and took Kathil's hands in hers. "There _are_ such things as sleeves. You are a lovely woman, and all beauty is a gift from the Maker. Let us celebrate it. Please?"

There was a look of such misery on the mage's face that broke Leliana's heart, just a little. "I…have no idea," she started, then stopped. "I don't even know what to _look_ for. What if I look ridiculous? I mean…it's _clothes._ I'm not _good_ at clothes, Lei."

She looked like she would much rather face down the Landsmeet again, or face another dragon, than have anything to do with picking out something pretty to wear. "But I am, Kathil. Clothes…in a way, they are like language, yes? Armor _says_ something to everyone who sees it. Mage robes _say_ something. You understand that, I know you do. Armor and robes won't say the proper things at all, not for these dances. You must have things that say _I am a beautiful and dangerous woman, and I understand the language that nobles speak._" She squeezed the mage's hands, which had gone cold but are beginning to warm now. "If you cannot trust yourself, trust me. I promise that I'm _very_ good at this."

There was a still little moment between them, Kathil's expression opaque. Then she used her hands on Leliana's to pull her into a hug. "I trust you," she said, and _ah_ the tension in her body, hard muscle shifting against Leliana in contrast to the other, softer parts of both of them.

She kissed the mage's hair. "Then let me do this for you," and her words had _many_ meanings, and from the way Kathil tensed again and then relaxed into Leliana's arms she had heard them.

And this was just another bar in the music between them.

Leliana let go of Kathil and bounced to her feet, grabbing the other woman's hand and hauling her up. "I know where the seamstress's shop is, and if you're _very_ nice to her she'll probably forgive you. Let us go!"

Panic colored the mage's expression. "But—shouldn't we get Zevran, or Cullen?"

"Zevran is busy charming the Princess Consort with stories of Antiva. Cullen is in the kennels." Which was why Leliana hadn't come to find Kathil the moment that Zevran had collared her in the hall—one did have to choose one's timing. _Better that it comes from you than from me, no? _Zevran had said, and Leliana had agreed. "Come along, dearest. Lorn, would you help me?"

The Mabari had been watching the two of them with a puzzled expression on his face. But now he started to wag his tail. His human was going to get new fur? That was a _fine_ thing. He came alongside Kathil, pressing his shoulder against her hip. The singer knew what she was about. Why was his human protesting?

"Traitor," Kathil muttered without heat. "Lei, you fight dirty."

"Of course I do." She smiled prettily at Kathil and kept her hand on Kathil's arm, pulling the protesting mage away from her room.

By the time they reached the side gate of the palace, Kathil had mostly stopped sputtering. Once they got to the market district, she had stopped trying to get away. _Progress!_

While Kathil was getting undressed for her fitting, Leliana had a quick word with the seamstress, whose eyes lit up in anticipation of a challenge. Lorn settled in a puddle of sunbeams that were coming through the western window and watched as the seamstress used a knotted string to take all _sorts_ of measurements. Leliana sat down next to him.

"You _are_ a handsome dog," she told him. "Once we know what colors she'll be wearing, we'll have some new collars made for you to match."

Lorn looked up at her with those melting brown eyes of his. And would his human's elf and her dust-knight have new collars too?

"Yes, but probably not matching." She scratched Lorn behind the ears, and he closed his eyes and scooted so he could lean against her. In the center of the room, Kathil made a strangled noise as the seamstress prodded her shoulder, running her string down the length of the scar.

"There, that's done," the seamstress said. "Now. I have some designs, and some fabric samples—just stay there, my lady, I'll bring them."

And then there was the most _lovely_ confusion of paper and fabric and after an hour or so even Kathil started to relax. After two hours, Leliana thought that her friend might actually be having fun. The seamstress had access to a quantity of Nevarran silk in delicate dyes. The fashion right now was for deep, rich colors—colors that would wash out Kathil's pale skin and hair. So it was against fashion they would be working.

They left that afternoon with a promise by the seamstress that the first of the dresses would be ready for a final fitting in three days, with the rest to be completed over the next few weeks. "Let's go to the Gnawed Noble," Leliana said, glancing at the sinking sun. "Shoes can wait until tomorrow."

"Shouldn't we—I don't know—get back to the palace? Won't we be missed?"

Leliana looped an arm around the mage's waist and pulled her close. "I have _just_ pried you out of the palace. I'm not taking you back yet. Tavern. Now."

Kathil gave in, and they went to the tavern, which was _far_ more respectable than most taverns Leliana had ever spent time in. Fortunately, after sundown it became slightly less respectable, and there were musicians and space to dance in.

The mage was a _terrible_ dancer.

Well, at least she was until Leliana managed to get her to drink half of a mug of the sweet cider that was the Gnawed's specialty. _Then_ she managed to forget that there were people watching and stop tripping over both of her feet. She had no idea of any of the steps, of course, but Leliana had taught _Alistair_ to dance. Kathil wasn't going to be nearly a challenge, after him.

She pulled Kathil over to the bench they were sharing, minding Lorn who was lurking under the table, lying in wait for someone to drop something to eat. The mage's cheeks were flushed, and when they sat down she promptly wriggled around, hooked one of her legs over Leliana's, and snuggled down into her shoulder. "I'm having fun," she said, her voice muffled by Leliana's shirt and nearly inaudible over the music. "Has anyone ever told you that you smell nice?"

"You, dearest," Leliana said, amused. "Many times."

"Well, it's _true._ Why didn't we ever…"

And the answer to _that_ question was rather complicated.

By her very great fortune, Leliana was rescued from having to answer. "Look who's here," she said. Coming through the crowd were two familiar figures. Zevran had his usual narrow-hipped swagger and a smile on his face that Leliana suspected hid a bit of worry. Cullen, next to him, was trying to dodge dancers and serving girls and not having much luck, and the worry on his face was _much_ more open.

Then Zevran spotted them, and nudged Cullen with an elbow. There was a speculative light in the elf's eyes, and Cullen, when he saw Kathil curled with her face in Leliana's shoulder, looked like he didn't know _quite_ what to think.

There was just enough space on the bench by Kathil for Zevran to fit himself into, which he promptly did. "Ah, fair Leliana, my bunting dove, _here_ is where you have stolen our Grey Warden away to. It is a good thing we decided to look here first, no?"

"You're the one who told me that I needed to get her to the seamstress," she pointed out.

"That I did, that I did."

Kathil raised her head and beamed at Zevran. "We've been dancing."

Cullen was standing across from them, a horrified look on his face. "You've been _drinking_."

"Only half a mug of cider, Cullen." Leliana smiled at the former Templar. "She's had more, before. Do pull over a chair."

There was a moment when Leliana thought that Cullen might actually grab Kathil, throw her over his shoulder, and make off with her in order to get her out of their evil clutches. Then he grabbed a chair and dropped down in it. "Mages—"

"Aren't _supposed_ to drink, but a little bit does not hurt," she said. "See, there are no demons here. And she is a much better dancer when she has had a little cider. I do suppose it is time to go back, isn't it? We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow."

Now Cullen looked suspicious. "Why? What are you doing tomorrow?"

Leliana smiled at him. Ah, it was so much _fun_ to make this man squirm. She did not blame Kathil for her fascination in the _slightest_. "Cobblers, Cullen. _Several_ cobblers, and with any luck we will find one who can make shoes that are _not_ these ugly things that you see everywhere in Ferelden. And I believe I saw a Navarran trader in the market today, and if it is true she will have lovely things to look at. You should come with us. You too, Zevran."

The elf glanced at Leliana, and there was that glint of wicked humor in his eyes. "Of course. Cullen will accompany us. I believe one afternoon away from his furry fascination will do him no harm."

Cullen shot a dark look at Zevran, who gave him a toothy smile in return. "All right, you two, let's go back to the palace," Leliana said. "Kathil, dearest, time to get up."

"If you insist," the mage said, and after a bit of untangling (which Cullen, from the expression on his face, did not miss) they were all on their feet.

Soon afterward, they were safely ensconced in the palace, everyone to their own rooms except for Lorn who came to visit with Leliana. He settled in front of the cold fireplace, heaving a great sigh. "That's our handsome dog," she told him, fondly. "You'll get to go in to your own room in a few hours."

She sat on the edge of her bed and retrieved from her sleeve the small bundle of rolled paper that she'd retrieved from the bartender at the Gnawed Noble. The message was in cipher, of course, but she had long practice in reading this particular code.

_It is a _jeu de blaireau_. Your contact is the dealer in feathers. Three others in the area._

_Be wary._

These little notes were never signed.

"Interesting," she murmured. She got up and crossed the room, crumpling the paper in one hand. A moment later, she'd used the lamp to ignite it and tossed it into the cold fireplace, among the ashes. The small flame flared hungrily, consuming the cipher and erasing everything except the memory.

*****

_Cullen:_

He found himself marking the days by _how old Fiann is today_, dividing his days by _before the kennels, during the kennels, after the kennels_. "It's an obsession when they're tiny," Emris told him. "It gets easier once they're weaned."

Fiann was eighteen days old today, and he no longer had any difficulty at all picking her out from her three siblings. She was the biggest of the puppies, and the moment she scented him now she would be wobbling towards him.

And today, her eyes were open.

The whelping box was full of puppies, stubby tails flailing, all of them looking for _their_ humans. Yvrenne had stepped out of the box, nudged Emris, and headed out the kennel door to the yard. Cullen bent and scooped Fiann up into his arms. She wiggled enthusiastically and licked his face, her whole body saying, _Mine, mine, mine, my big-voice! _She paused in her wiggling to blink at him. _Big-voice-two-feet-__**hands**__!_

He'd been around puppies before, of course. Even though the Tower had no dogs, the Chantry in Woodson certainly had them, and he'd helped take care of more than a few litters in his time. But this was different. None of the puppies he'd ever played with had been _his_. And he was absolutely sure that none of them had been so beautiful.

She mouthed his chin, and he yelped a bit as one of her newly erupted teeth met his skin. She drew back, grey-blue eyes big. She hurt big-voice-two -feet?

"Your mouth does _not_ belong on any part of me," he told her. "My skin isn't as tough as a Mabari's."

The Mabari pup blinked at him. Oh? Oh. Then, seeming to forget all about it, she snuggled down into his arms, sighing happily. "Enjoy that while it lasts," Emris said. "About a week from now, when her feet are steadier under her, the only time she'll be that still is when she's asleep. And she'll be that way for almost a year. Don't be mistaken, Warden. She is going to drive you absolutely mad."

"Things I love have a way of doing that," he said, looking down at the brindled puppy. The other chosen Mabari handlers were coming in for time with their own pups, and Cullen carried Fiann off to the side, sitting down with his back against the wall.

_Things I love _do_ have a way of driving me mad, don't they?_

Really, he had no idea what he was doing. After that night in Highever, Kathil was still friendly, but not overly flirtatious. They were starting to get used to each other again, and Cullen was starting to get used to Zevran and Leliana, as well. He thought the elf was the easier of the two to read, honestly—or at least, his role in Kathil's life was reasonably well defined. Lover, protector, oathbound, _quite_ willing to kill for her—and maybe to die for her, if it was necessary.

Leliana was a different sort of puzzle.

The bard was a past master of the art of manipulation. She could keep a crowd captivated with a story or a song, fire arrows with deadly accuracy, discuss art and politics and philosophy. And she was a _heretic_, with her views on the Maker and the Chantry. _I believe the Maker loves us and wishes us to be happy_, she'd said once.

Not _quite_ enough to get her burned like Andraste, but close.

She and Kathil were _something_ to each other. What, Cullen had no idea. Best friends, yes. Lovers…probably not, all of the times he'd seen them snuggled together notwithstanding. Just like he and Kathil were something to one another that didn't really have many good words for it, so were the bard and the mage, it seemed.

He shifted, and Fiann rolled over onto her back on his lap. He tickled one of her enormous paws. "You are going to be a _big_ puppy when you grow up." Her paddling paws agreed.

Yvrenne came in to claim her pups with a short bark, and Fiann scrambled off of his lap and made a wobbling beeline for her mother. Cullen got up, nodded to Emris, and headed back into the palace. Kathil would be in the library at this hour, and once he found her they could go to one of the afternoon salons that Rima was so fond of holding. The Princess Consort and the Grey Warden were still uneasy in each other's presence, but every few days Kathil dropped in on her salons to listen to the discussion. Leliana was often the center of attention, and sometimes Zevran, and sometimes another distinguished visitor.

Cullen made his way to the palace library, going directly to the back corner where she'd set up a study area for herself, much to the disapproval of the archivists. Her notes were nearly divided into stacks, newly trimmed quill pens lying in an open box to one side next to the inkstand. Kathil herself was sitting, one leg drawn up under her, staring at nothing.

And _that_ was always an occasion for a twist in his stomach. But he could feel the Veil around them, could _always_ feel the Veil; it was intact. She was not gone. Just thinking.

After a moment, she stirred. "Cullen," she said, and gave him a small smile. "Is it time for the salon already? And how is Fiann?"

"Yes, and well," he told her. He offered a hand to her. "Shall we go, my lady?"

Kathil unfolded herself from her chair, running a hand over her pale hair. "I'm not your or anyone's _lady_." She grabbed his hand, using it to pull herself close to him. "Warden, mage, hero if you _must_, but no lady." She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek, close to his ear. "None at all."

So much for _friendly but not flirtatious_.

Before he could recover, she'd hooked her arm around his elbow and was hauling him out of the library with a stride surprisingly long for someone who wasn't really all that tall. They were in the royal wing almost before he could blink, waved through by a pair of guards, and walking into Rima's bower.

The bower was the one place in the household where the Princess Consort held absolute power. It was on the protected side of the palace, and its windows were large panels of elaborately colored glass. The walls were of white plaster, molded to resemble a colorless forest scene. When the sun shone, the effect was of a fever-dream woodland, all the colors of the glass shining on the plaster trees.

Rima was holding court near the two largest windows, Leliana at her side, before her an assortment of chairs and cushions upon which were this afternoon's assortment of nobility both male and female. Zevran was here, sitting off to one side, Lorn lying at his feet.

There was something wrong. The elf was only ever _quite_ that deadly still when there was some trouble about to happen. Lorn looked relaxed, though both his ears were pricked. Cullen felt his steps slow, saw Kathil glance at him, wondering what his problem was.

"Ah, the Senior Enchanter has decided to grace us with her presence!" Rima called. "Come, mage, sit with us. The Arlessa Isolde of Redcliffe is here, and I know she has been _most_ looking forward to seeing you."

Kathil blanched.

There was a woman rising from her seat, anger and hope warring on her face. She was as richly attired as anyone in the room, her hair gold streaked with white. "Do you have news of Connor?" she blurted, her cultured voice strained. "Have you seen my son?"

Cullen could feel Kathil trembling. He had no idea _why_, but—

He thought he could make an educated guess.

It took Kathil a moment to respond. "He…I have seen him, Isolde. He is well. When I return to the Tower, he will be my apprentice."

Isolde was searching the mage's face, her eyes darting. "Does he miss us terribly? I wish I had known you were going to be here, I would have brought a few things—a few toys, one of his favorite books—the _Templars_ didn't let him take _anything_—"

Kathil had a death grip on Cullen's arm now. "Arlessa Isolde. This is not the time or place for this discussion. Please, let us withdraw."

But the Arlessa's face was beginning to twist with rage. "I _knew_ there was something they weren't telling us. Spit it out, _mage_. If you can tell me, you can tell everyone here."

Leliana had risen, and her hand was now on Isolde's shoulder. "My lady, please—there are chambers nearby—"

Isolde shook off the bard's hand. Her voice dropped, now low and murderous. "Tell me, mage. _Tell me what the Circle has done to my son._"

Kathil shuddered. Then she swallowed. There was a low, grumbling growl coming from Lorn. "You wish to know, Isolde?" Her shaking voice steadied. "They have taken his memories of his childhood and replaced them with fog. They have taken his ability to father children. They will lay obedience into him like tiles in a floor. They will teach him to control his emotions, and his magic, and when he is old enough he will join the Circle, or become Tranquil if he cannot master that control."

There was lightning leaking from her fingertips, burning Cullen's skin, and he could _feel_ the Veil shredding around them.

_Maker's Breath—_

Between one heartbeat and another he gathered his will, covered her sparking hand with his own, and Kathil staggered as the cleansing robbed her of her power and her ability to speak. Isolde was screaming something, Leliana was holding her back, and Cullen had _just_ enough presence of mind to turn and start pulling Kathil from the room. Zevran was next to the two of them, his hand on the mage's shoulder, and Lorn gave one last bark at the company in the bower before they were hurrying out and the door was closing behind them.

Kathil was crying.

Cullen had never even seen her come close to tears. But now she was sobbing, her face gone blotchy as she stumbled, and by the Maker's own fortune there was an alcove with a padded bench nearby that Zevran steered her into. She dropped down onto the bench and doubled over.

Lorn sat down by the alcove, his ears flat. Someone had broken his human. Again.

_Again?_ Cullen wondered.

Best to let Zevran handle this. He stepped back, intending to retreat. Zevran's head came up. "Help me with her," he said, and his tone was so flat that it was nearly unrecognizable. "Sit with us."

Cullen obeyed, coming to sit down on Kathil's other side, tentatively placing one hand on her shoulder. Zevran muttered something in a language Cullen didn't speak, but he agreed with the emotion that he heard in that oath. "Connor was possessed by a demon, after the Arl was poisoned," Zevran said, almost absently. "We went to great lengths to save his life, and Isolde's. She promised to send him to the Circle. You were gone when he finally arrived. I believe Kathil was the one to remind the Arlessa of her promise, and tell Greagoir that he needed to send the Templars for him."

The mage had stopped crying, though she did not sit up. "He probably won't survive his Harrowing. If he's not made Tranquil before he ever gets there. Demon possessions, so young…they change people." Her voice was colorless, and small. She seemed to be speaking to the stone beneath her feet. "I saved his life. And for _what_?"

Neither of them had an answer.

"Rima knew exactly what she was doing," Zevran said. "I knew she would try something, but I didn't know what until I saw Isolde."

Kathil sat up. She wiped at her nose with her sleeve. "Maker's Breath. I haven't lost it that badly in _forever_." She glanced at Cullen. "Thank you."

And it was odd, because until right then he hadn't even _thought_ of just how dangerous that situation had been. He also hadn't noticed that his right arm hurt and that there was a smell like burned cloth in the air. Glancing at his arm, he sucked his breath in. The fabric of his shirt was scorched in a perfect impression of Kathil's thin fingers.

Kathil spat an oath and grabbed his hand, pulling it towards her. She pushed up his sleeve, and underneath there was raised and blistered skin that echoed the burned places on his shirt. Before he could protest that he was _fine_ and it was _nothing_ she was muttering a word and laying her palm over the burns, and what felt like cool water drenched his arm, taking the pain. When she lifted her hand, the skin was reddened and shiny, but whole.

A moment later, she was trying to get up.

Zevran growled, and lunged forward to wrap an arm around her waist. "_No_, Kathil."

She rounded on the elf, her hand lifted—

Then stopped.

Her shoulders sagged, and she dropped back onto the bench. "Maker's _Balls_. Zevran, I'm sorry."

"It is not me who needs the apology, my Grey Warden." Zevran's voice was quiet. "I merely did not relish the idea of chasing you halfway across Ferelden when you fled."

"I would have, too." Kathil sighed, and turned to Cullen. "I'm sorry, Cullen. You have no idea how sorry. I've hurt you enough already, I shouldn't be adding anything more to the pile."

She looked like she meant it, too, and she was inching away from him, pressing herself against Zevran. The moment felt strange, like the Veil tearing but not quite the same, and he could almost see her retreating, see walls come up that had been wearing down in the last few weeks, see her becoming a thing made of blades again.

He couldn't _stand_ it.

Cullen held a hand out to her. She stared at it, his sleeve still pushed up and the new-formed scar on his arm showing, for a moment. Then she put her hand in his.

He used that hand to pull her into a hug, and the smell of her was lightning and dust, filling his head. "You're going to hurt me," he said, keeping his voice low. "I know this. Probably a lot worse than this, some day. And I'm probably going to hurt you, sometime. That's just who we are, Kathil. And that's _life_."

(They were almost twenty and she was lying crumpled on the floor of the Harrowing Chamber, the moonlight was slanting in the great windows, and all he could think was _it's too beautiful an evening for this_. His blade naked in his hand, Greagoir at his shoulder, Irving facing him. Waiting for a demon to arise from her body.)

(Or they were fifteen and nobody had told either of them yet about the Harrowing, and in the darkness of the back stairwell she sat down next to him. It was the last time he ever remembered her smelling like a human and not a mage.)

(Or they were twenty-one and through the shadows of madness she was standing in front of him, and he had no idea what he just said but she was turning away from him, and there were spiderwebs and shadows within him and without.)

(Or they were twenty-five and there was a bloody blade protruding from her chest, and all he could see in that moment was the incomprehension on her face as she fell to her knees in the mud.)

(And they were _something_ to each other, mage and Templar, two sides of the same spinning coin.)

She'd moved, sometime in the last few seconds as he sat with memory battering at him, and her eyes were even with his. Dark eyes. So brown they were nearly black. And for once they were entirely _human_ eyes and he couldn't see the Fade in them.

Then her mouth was on his.

It took him a few moments to figure out exactly what was happening, that she was kissing him and he was kissing her back and _Maker_ it had been since a child in the Chantry since he'd done this and he was probably doing it _wrong—_

"I am going to _kill_ that woman so very very _dead_, and—oh. My."

That was Leliana.

The two of them were springing apart, and Cullen knew that he was red from ears to toes, and Kathil looked about the same way, and she was staring at him with something like astonishment on her face.

Then the moment was done, and Kathil was off the bench and throwing herself into Leliana's arms, and Cullen might have felt vaguely insulted if it hadn't been for the mad, embarrassed giggle that was coming out of the mage. He glanced at Zevran. The elf, in return, raised an eyebrow.

He wasn't exactly sure when his life had stopped making any sort of sense whatsoever, but this was _clearly_ madness.


	3. Feather Moon, Scarlet Sky

**Three: Feather Moon, Scarlet Sky**

**

* * *

**

_Zevran:_

He most _sincerely_ disliked the Princess Consort, though he had to admit that she was very good at what she did.

His Grey Warden played politics much like she fought battles. She found the weakness in her opponent, hit it hard, and expected that the enemy would fall in the first round. It was an admirable approach, and in the Tower it was entirely appropriate, surrounded as the mages were with men who thought much the same way. After all, the victor of a sword fight was often the first one to introduce steel to flesh.

Unfortunately, Rima was not a warrior and did not play by those rules. She played by the rules of guile, of the trap waiting for the unsuspecting rabbit to wander its way. It was a good game for a ruler to play, but Rima had turned her attention to Kathil, and that was going to profit no one.

The woman was a delight—quick-witted, easy on the eyes, and with a certain savage humor to her that he had found was part of the Ferelden national character. In any other circumstances he might be trying to seduce her. As it was, he was finding himself having to oppose her. Not a position that led to long life for any of them.

"We could go," he said. He and Kathil lay on the overlarge bed in the room they shared, fully clothed, limbs intertwined. "We do not _have_ to stay in Denerim, little bird."

"Except that we do," Kathil said. "I'm not going anywhere without Cullen, and if Cullen leaves now he'll lose his chance to have his Mabari. I am _not_ going to lose him that, Rima or no Rima. I'll talk to Alistair. Maybe he can talk some sense into her."

"Do not underestimate her, my Grey Warden," he said, his voice low. "Do not think she is some silly girl merely because you believe she acts out of jealousy. Today's salvo was merely a warning, and I believe asking Alistair to choose sides in this would do you a disservice ."

"If that was a _warning_…what do you mean, I think she acts only acts out of jealousy? Why else could she possibly have taken such a dislike to me?"

"Ah, that took our Chantry mouse to point out to me. Rima has spent three years building upon her power base here, yes? Alistair is the leader, she the politician. She sways the nobles to her side, she holds the loyalties of both sides of opposing factions. But now, my Grey Warden, you come in and the factions turn their eyes to you. A figure who trails legends in her wake, who fought and bled at the side of their king." Zevran traced a finger down Kathil's shoulder, dipping a bit to come down her side and then under her breast. "Ferelden does like its warriors."

"Barbarians, all of us," Kathil muttered. "And that includes me, in case you're wondering."

He chuckled. "A barbarian sex goddess, I believe I mentioned when we first met. So the nobles begin speaking of you, wondering if you are going to take sides in thus and such disagreement, whether you might be convinced to speak for them to someone. Rima sees years of careful work blown away by a spring breeze. Her only choice is to try to either reduce your importance, or remove you. The easiest way to do that is to remind all that you are a mage, and mages are _altogether_ unsavory creatures who kidnap their children and who they should not be caught dead speaking to. And so, she lays Isolde in ambush for you." He shook his head. "I could not warn you in time."

Though he _had_ seen Cullen slow, almost responding to his silent, furious thought—_take her out of here, there is trouble_—but they did not have the unconscious rapport that their small group had had while fighting the Blight.

_Yet._

"We could take rooms in the city," she said after a moment. "Would that help? Except I don't think there are going to be any available until after the summer masque."

"It would, and I will look," Zevran told her. She shifted, pressing herself into his wandering hand that was now cupping one of her breasts. "So. I take it that you are planning to finally ravish your poor unsuspecting Templar?"

"Oh, _Maker_. I don't even know why I did that. Well—I know _why_. Just not why right then." Kathil propped herself up on one elbow, looking down at him. "Say the word, Zev, and I put a stop to it right now."

Ah, she was so _serious_ sometimes. "And why would I do that?" he asked, and smiled up at her. "From what you say, he is a man of great potential for pleasure, yes?"

"He isn't going anywhere, Zevran. He _can't_. He's not like any of the others. We can't just vanish if things go wrong."

He was silent for a moment, acknowledging that she did have that correct. They _were_ rather stuck with the former Templar. "Ah, little bird," he said, finally, and slid one arm around her, pulling her down on his chest. Her weight was a reassurance, her body a litany sung to some ancient, pagan god. She rested her head on the pillow next to his. "We have always taken this life one breath at a time, have we not? It is not as though we have any assurance we will see next year, or the next sunrise."

A scar on the side of her face, a shoulder nearly ruined by a nightmare's claws. The pattern of scars on his chest and back that made very sure that there were some potential lovers who would reject him out of hand, horrified.

She took a long breath inward, let it out just as slowly. "We have." One of her hands came up, and she ran her thumb over his lower lip. "And every breath is a choice."

"And what do you choose to do now?" he asked, feeling the callus on her thumb snag on his lip a little.

Her answer was to kiss him, her mouth nearly bruising on his, teeth a more than idle threat behind her lips. Her fingernails dug into the back of his neck, and he rolled the two of them over, freeing his hands so he could pull her shirt open, letting her hands tear at his own clothing.

He often liked to take his time with her. This was not going to be one of those times.

Sharp edges, claws and fury, her teeth sunk into his shoulder bruising and drawing blood, him above her and pinning her wrists to the bed as she snarled and told him _now, damnit, now_ and as always he gave into her demands, both of them finding oblivion so very quickly in their joining. Both of them, after, were sweaty, wrung out, unmoving. Both of them awake, neither of them speaking, but she shivered a little and he shifted so more of her body was in contact with his.

He wondered if her Templar was going to know what hit him.

*****

_Leliana:_

She had left it almost too late.

But now she was slipping along a side street in the market district, looking for the dealer in feathers. There, the stall of the Nevarran trader; no _actual_ feathers, but plenty of bright adornments for noble birds.

There was a small crowd of girls in front of the stall, looking over jewelry and silks. She browsed nearby, waiting for them to be gone. When the girls moved on, Leliana moved in.

The Nevarran was a small, dark woman with her hair bound up under a hat that was not large, but _was_ quite elaborately created in stiffened silk. "Can I help you find something?" the woman asked, showing rows of even, white teeth when she smiled.

"A feather or two," Leliana said. She fished a coin out of her pocket and flipped it at the Nevarran. The other woman deftly snatched it out of the air, first holding to up to the light, then biting it.

Kathil had seen that coin once, had asked if it was Orlesian. Leliana had told her it was a good-luck charm given to her by her mother. It was gold and copper mixed with lyrium, stamped on both sides with peonies, and it was something that her mother had never even dreamed of owning. The Nevarran tossed it back to Leliana. "Thought I might be hearing from you," she said. "What do you want?"

"The _jeu de blaireau_. I want in."

"Nothing simple it is, with you. Fine, fine. It is already in motion, but I will tell you how to find the crew. The run is during the summer masque." The Nevarran spread her hands. "The score isn't from the mark. It's from the mist."

Now Leliana raised her eyebrow. "The mist has commissioned a _jeu_? Fascinating. Well, as long as the score is adequate."

"So I hear. Now, here is what you must know—"

A few minutes later, Leliana was tucking her token back into her pocket, sorting through what the Nevarran had told her. _The summer masque, and a badger game. _

_This is going to be so _very_ interesting._

*****

_Kathil:_

She'd raised her hand to knock on Cullen's door and lowered it again about five times now. She fixed the door with a baleful glare. Stupid door.

She didn't _have_ to knock. Cullen didn't usually lock his door, probably from long-ingrained Tower habit. Even if he had, the sidestep spell would bypass the door, no problem.

Only that was rude.

_Just knock._

It was as much an effort of will to raise her hand and rap three times on the wood as it was to cast even the most difficult of spells. It had been a day since Isolde had confronted her, a day spent mostly hiding in her quarters. But there was yet another dance tonight, the last one before the summer masque, and she was expected to be there. She was going to have this conversation sometime. Might as well be now.

When Cullen opened the door and saw her, he saw a quick flash of surprise and anticipation on his features, followed quickly by something approaching dread when he saw her face. "Yes?"

"Can I come in for a minute?" Oh, good, her voice wasn't shaking too much. Cullen nodded and stepped back, and she came inside, closing the door behind her. Instead of advancing into the room, she leaned against the door, feeling the solidity of the wood at her shoulder. "Before this goes any further, Cullen…"

"Let me guess," he said. "You made a mistake. It won't happen again." His jaw was tight, his arms crossed.

_Andreste's little _apples. "No! No. I just... have something to tell you." Was it too late to sidestep into the hallway and run away? Yes. Yes, it rather was. She took a shaking breath. "I, ah…did some checking when we were in Woodson. Well, more like a little breaking and entering…" Now he was starting to look confused. _Just say it._ "I looked at the records of their foundlings. Cullen. I know who your parents were."

And now he had gone pale, staring at her like he'd just seen a ghost. "_What?_ Who? And why didn't you tell me _before_?"

She had the skirt of her robe clenched in her hand, the fabrc twisting. "Because your mother was a mage." She took a shaking breath. "Do you want to know?"

He'd taken a half step forward. "Yes!"

Kathil couldn't look at him. "Wynne," she said to the floor. "She was sheltered in the Chantry in Redcliffe for a few weeks right before she gave birth to you. The Templars stood guard, and accompanied the Sister who helped deliver you to Woodson after. It was recorded that, one night, she whispered to the Sister attending her who the father of her child was…" _Oh Maker I don't know if you want to know this, Cullen!_

There were a pair of hands on her shoulders. "Who?"

She looked up and saw _hunger_ on his face, a hunger she knew all too well. "Ser Greagoir. Not Knight Commander, yet. Just a young Templar who had an…encounter with a mage. I…doubt very much that he ever knew you existed, Cullen."

Shock was draining all of the color from his face. "_Greagoir_? But—he's as old as the _stones_. He's _part_ of the Tower. He'd _never—_"

She raised her gaze and looked him full in the face. "Find himself drawn to one of the mages? Stand at her Harrowing, dreading the moment when he would have to kill her?" She paused. "Let a Grey Warden into the Tower when it was overrun with abominations because he couldn't go himself, and he was afraid that she was still alive in there—and more afraid she had been taken by a demon?"

Cullen let go of her shoulders and stumbled away to sink heavily onto the bed, putting his head in his hands. Kathil didn't move from where she was. "If it had been anyone else, I would have told you right away. I…just didn't know how you would feel about knowing."

He didn't respond, and she slid down the door to sit down with her back to it, her knees drawn to her chest. _Stop talking, Kathil._ "I wanted to tell you before anything else happened." _Stop talking._ "You have Wynne's eyes, you know. I always loved her eyes." _Stop stop _stop_ talking!_

Kathil covered her mouth with her hand and willed herself to shut _up_. _And what are you going to say if he asks why you didn't tell him before you showed up in his room in Highever, Kathil?_ She didn't think _because I thought it would be only once, to let me get you out of my system_ was going to fly as an answer and besides it wasn't quite true.

She had told Leliana that she was selfish, once, in a moment of painful honesty.

"I'll go," she said, and climbed to her feet.

He raised his head from his hands. "Kathil," he said, and she remembered her determination only a few hours before that she was _never_ going to hurt him again. "You don't need to go. I'm just…"

"Surprised? Shocked?" She took a step towards him. "Feeling strangely like you thought you were dancing something new only to discover that you've accidentally made up the Remigold?" She saw the corners of his eyes crinkle. "Me, too. I knew Wynne had a child somewhere—Alistair told me—but I had no idea."

She could see his hand clench on the edge of the mattress, his knuckles going white. "They told us mages couldn't have children. But—Wynne—and _you_—you had a child too—"

_Oh._

Fear shivered through her.

And it was _altogether_ too late to run away.

_Andraste in your mercy, please let him take this well. I do not want to have to kill him._

Cullen was looking at her, puzzled. She shifted in her place, centered her weight between her feet, made an effort to get a grip on her shredded composure. "I've never been with child, as far as I know," she said quietly. "I lied to the Grey Wardens. Alistair telling me that Wynne had a child inspired that part of the lie. Yes, he and I had a relationship, during the war. And yes, someone was pregnant the day the Archdemon died, with his child. But it wasn't me."

And she told him the truth. About Morrigan, about the ritual, about how she had talked Alistair into completing it. "I'm not proud of what I did, and I know the price may be very high. But if I'd told the Grey Wardens, they probably would have killed me, might have tried to execute Alistair, and then they probably would have gone after Morrigan. If I happened to still be alive she would have blamed _me_. She bought a lot of things, that night. She traded my life and Alistair's for whatever it is she wanted a child for. And she bought my silence." There was bitterness flooding her mouth. "I was so sodding _grateful_ to her. I didn't want to die, Cullen." _Selfish _and_ a coward._

Cullen looked—thoughtful.

_Not scared, not horrified, not reaching for his sword, not getting up to find the nearest Grey Warden and share this little pigeon-bomb with them. Well. Better than I dared hope._

"Would you do it again?" he asked.

Her shoulders sagged. "I don't know. I _am_ glad to be alive. And if it had come down to it that day…Wynne agreed to keep Alistair from doing anything foolish. Ferelden needed him. It didn't really need me. Still doesn't."

Cullen closed his eyes for a moment and pinched the bridge of his nose briefly, an exhausted expression crossing his face. "I think you might have some people who'd argue with that." He dropped his hand. "Are you done with telling me secrets? At least for the moment?"

Kathil thought about nightmares, old roads, the crumbling, scorched walls of the Black City, Wynne…and shut her mouth. Nodded. "For the moment. I should probably go." She bit her lip. "Just so you know, Cullen…if this changes anything, I will not blame you."

She didn't stay to hear a response, if there was one. Two long steps and a sidestep later and she was out in the corridor without having to open the door, and she was fleeing towards the library. _Work. That will calm me down._

_Dancing the _sodding_ Remigold._

*****

_Cullen:_

What precisely was one supposed to do when the mage one was Templar for told one _by the way the parents you've always wanted to know were in the Tower all along, oh and just so you know I told perhaps the largest lie ever to save my own skin a few months ago sorry about that_?

The lie…well, he wasn't exactly surprised. In the hall where Montclair had held her court martial, he'd known that there was at least some of the story she was spinning that wasn't quite true. She was a liar, sure as the day she was born, and though she'd gotten to be a very _good_ liar in the last four years, he could still tell when she was putting just a little extra sincerity into her voice, a little extra _I would never dream of speaking a falsehood_.

And Alistair had shot him a _look_ when he'd thought about objecting. Not a threatening look. Pleading.

Well. He knew why now, didn't he?

He couldn't really hold it against either of them. Thinking about the magic they'd used made something small and hot burn in his gut, though. From the looks of her as the mage was telling the tale, she felt approximately the same way.

He felt similarly odd about the other thing she'd told him. That she'd bothered to find the records at all said something, though at the moment he wasn't quite sure what. That his mother had been a Circle mage and his father _Greagoir_…

_Andraste, what am I supposed to _do_ with this?_

He forced himself to stand. He'd go the chapel. Prayer would comfort him. He grabbed his sword out of habit; he would have to armor up for the dance tonight, since he always attended the dances as Kathil's guard, but right now he was just wearing the almost-uniform which identified him as a mage's guard to everyone in the palace.

Everyone attended the Chantry in the Market District for most services and holidays, but there was a small chapel tucked away in the Palace. There was a small staff of Sisters who rotated through from the large Chantry, and a few Templars who would come with them on occasion.

Today there were no Templars, just a tall Sister whose dark hair was streaked with white. "Sister Byrony," he said as he came in. The smell of incense steadied him. He came up the aisle, knelt before the lectern.

The Sister was lighting candles on the shallow shelves. She turned to him and blew out the taper in her hand. "You look troubled, young man," she said quietly. "How can I help?"

The familiarity of the question, of the place, of the hundreds of times he had come into a chantry and asked to be blessed and shriven, all of it made the knots in his chest come a little loose. "It's a long road I walk, Sister," he said.

She smiled at him, showing crooked teeth. "The Canticle of Trials, I think. I must leave soon, but I will pray with you, ser Cullen." She knelt next to him and drew a breath. "_I shall not be left to wander the drifting roads of the Fade; for there is no darkness, nor death either, in the Maker's Light. And nothing that He has wrought shall be lost…._"

He answered her with the next stanza, and for a few minutes they recited the Canticle together. Then she rose, touched him on the shoulder, and retreated.

_Nothing that He has wrought shall be lost._

There was a soft step behind him. Another Sister, he assumed. He did not looked around, staying on his knees with his head bowed. The steps paused by him, and then cloth rustled as whoever it was knelt on the stone next to him. "I thought I might find you here," said a very familiar voice, rounded and softened by an Orlesian accent.

Startled, he opened his eyes. It was Leliana, her hair unbound and fluffing around her head like it did when she didn't wind it into little braids. Her mouth was pursed thoughtfully. "Kathil mentioned that she'd told you what we discovered at the chantry at Woodson."

Cullen nodded. "It was—surprising."

"I would think that it would be." One of her hands touched his shoulder briefly, her fingers pressing against the cloth of his shirt. "Tell me—are you ashamed? To come from such a pairing?"

_Yes_, he almost answered, and then caught himself. That was what Cullen the Chantry child would have said, that Templars had a sacred duty that was _never_ to be transgressed.

The truth was just so much more _complicated_.

"I don't know," he said at last. "I just didn't think it was possible. I thought that my mother was some poor girl who had gotten into trouble and given me up."

Leliana nodded. "Let me tell you something, Cullen. Alistair spoke with Wynne at some length about her son. She wanted nothing more than to keep you, but she could not have been allowed to do so. Alistair asked her whether she thought about her son. _Every day_, she said." The bard's blue eyes had gone soft. "Wynne…was extraordinary, Cullen. You may not have gotten to see it, but I believe that she was the closest thing to a purely _good_ person I have ever met. She mothered all of us, during the Blight. Sometimes a bit _sharply_. But she knitted Sten a hat. And she kept on trying to convince Zevran that murder is wrong."

Cullen blinked. "Did she manage it?"

"He kept deflecting her with compliments on her bosom." Leliana smiled. "And Greagoir, well, he is a good man too, yes? Perhaps weighed down by years of duty. But I think it is a bit romantic, that he and Wynne had a tryst. I like to think that it was something that happened when they were very young, and that the connection lasted even when they could no longer be together. Sad, yes, but also beautiful that they were able to have that. The Maker smiles on love in all of its forms, I think."

He got the feeling that the bard was not _just_ talking about Wynne and Greagoir.

"It's just going to take me some time to get used to the idea," he said. "Did Kathil send you to find me?"

The corners of the bard's eyes crinkled. "She told me to give you some time alone. I ignored her. Are you feeling better now?"

He considered the question. "I am."

"Good. Now, ser Cullen, while we are alone we must plot a bit, yes?" There was an impish expression on Leliana's face. "The summer masque approaches swiftly, only three weeks away. I have talked to the seamstress who has been making Kathil's costume, and she has something for you nearly finished. But we must find you a mask to match."

"What?" The word was a bit strangled. "I'm going as her _guard_."

"Pfft. You are _not_. That might be how you have avoided the dances, but I will not allow you to duck out on the masque." She waved her hand. "I have been to many a masque, in Orlais. I think it is admirable that the Amaranthines have elected to be brave and bring the custom to Denerim, though I think there will be small differences. But the important parts are the same, yes? Most of the rules suspended for just one night. Behind a mask, we are allowed to be who we truly are."

Cullen gave her a sidelong glance. "I think you are possibly a very wicked woman, Leliana."

"Me? Wicked? I am sweetness itself." She grinned at Cullen. "Tomorrow morning, Zevran and I will accompany Kathil to a private audience with Arl Eamon. Find your way to the seamstress who has the shop on Vimes Alley. You will have just over an hour, I think."

"What does Eamon want?" he asked.

"Difficult to say, yes? We will see. I will look for a mask for you. Something simple, I think, perhaps a half-face. It seems such a shame to cover that lovely mouth you have, Cullen." The bard got to her feet, pulling him up with her. Cullen could feel his ears starting to go red. "I believe you have a puppy to visit, do you not? We will see you tonight, then."

She left him at the door of the chapel, striding off in that bouncing way she had. He watched her go, then turned and walked towards the kennels.

*****

_Kathil:_

She should have brought Cullen to this meeting.

She had thought that she was going to be meeting with Eamon alone, and Leliana and Zevran had elected to come along. They had been up all kinds of late last night, at the dance, and Cullen had said that he had an errand to do in the market—something about a Sister at the Chantry. She'd let him go, assuming that it was too early for her to get into any kind of mischief that she might need his help with.

Eamon's note to Kathil yesterday had indicated that there was something of import the Arl (former Arl, at least, and how _did_ that work when an Arl stepped down? She had no idea) needed to speak with her about.

He had not mentioned that he was going to bring his wife.

Zevran's hand was on the small of the back, reminding her that she didn't have the option of retreat. She wished she'd worn anything other than her robes to this meeting—Isolde already looked like she was about to start crying, and it only got worse as Kathil came closer to the grouping of chairs in the small sitting room. The Hall of the Landsmeet was just on the other side of the doors—she could be out and across the hall in moments—

Then she looked at Isolde's face and reminded herself that the poor woman had lost her only child. She took a shivering breath and seated herself, focusing, binding down her emotions. Zevran and Leliana sat down, flanking her, a silent gesture of support. Lorn went to Eamon and gave him a grave sniff of greeting, wrinkled his nose at Isolde, and came back to Kathil to plop down at her feet. He was watching Isolde carefully. "Your Graces. You wished to speak to me?"

Easmon inclined his head towards her. "We appreciate you taking the time to come here," he said. In his voice was a quiet gravity, the same gravity that had convinced her that she really did need to speak at the Landsmeet and put Alistair forward as King. She relaxed, just a little. "I apologize for not telling you Isolde was going to be here, but she insisted—"

"I must apologize, Grey Warden," Isolde said. "I am so sorry about that scene in Rima's bower. I just—saw you, and all I could think was that you had perhaps seen Connor, and I've been so _worried_ about him." Her hands twisted together in her lap, fingers moving restlessly.

Kathil took a shivering breath. "I was taken by surprise, Arlessa. I would not have spoken nearly as I did, had I thought a moment." She felt Lorn shift at her feet, and she bent briefly over to lay a hand on his head. _It's all right._

"It's just…" Isolde, stopped, and swallowed. "There is no hope, is there? He isn't going to return to us, or even come to visit."

She fought to keep from clutching at her robes, fisting her hands in the cloth. "What do you want to know, Isolde? And how much? I can give you honest answers, but I don't know what will comfort you and what will make the loss worse."

Eamon reached over to take Isolde's hand in his. "Is he all right? Is he well, is he happy?" he asked.

"That much I can say," Kathil said. "The last I saw him, he was well, and adjusting to life in the Tower. It is easier for the children who are a bit older, like Connor. He was starting to make friends when I left, and he is doing well in his study of magic. Unlike many, he has little fear of the magic, and that helps." Her hand was at her neck, touching the Warden's Oath that hung there, drawing comfort and focus from the skin-warmed metal and the dark blood within.

"You said—they made him forget us," Isolde said. She was clutching at her husband's hand.

"I like it about as well as you do. The same thing was done to me, Isolde. It is done to all of us. We die to our former lives, and are reborn as mages." She fought not to shrink away from the look on both Eamon and Isolde's faces. "I was four years old when I was brought to the Tower. My first real memory is of nighttime in the apprentice quarters, and the girls in the bunk above my head talking about their homework."

"What is the Tower like?" Isolde asked. "They—they said we could not visit."

Maker's Breath. The Tower. "To a child, it seems to go on forever," she said. "The ceilings are high, and it is drafty, and in the winter we all wear about ten layers of clothing. And the stairs—there are hundreds of stairs. But…it is beautiful, Isolde. Out of every window, you can see the lake and all of its moods, how it reflects the sky. And there are other mages there, people who understand—"

_Who understand the days when no matter how large the Tower is, it is far too small. Who understand what it is to be always watched, to have the three fates of a mage laid out in front of us in every moment—Tranquil, enchanter, death. Who understand the fire and the lightning and the ice within us and around us, and how _beautiful_ it is in the moment of casting a spell._

_Who understand that none of us have very many choices in this life, and the importance even the smallest choices have to us._

Everyone in the room was staring at Kathil, and she was abruptly aware that she had stopped talking. She wondered what they saw on her face. "It is a difficult place, your Graces. But it is also home. I will not lie to you and say that it is easy to be a mage. I do not think the Maker meant for any of our lives to be easy. It is entirely possible to be happy, though."

Sitting with her back against Jowan's knobby knees in the corridor, him braiding her hair so she wouldn't set it on fire during their next lesson. (She had set her hair on fire anyway. She had ended up cutting it all off herself and enduring the teasing for it.) Making up sign languages and secret codes so they could communicate during library silence hours. Daring each other to sneak into the Senior Enchanter quarters.

Clumsy kisses with Sati in an alcove of the chapel, both of them eager as puppies but with _no_ idea what they were about, and completely thrilled with the _naughtiness_ of it all. Teasing the Templars (though after Cullen had become one of them, that game had abruptly lost much its savor).

Home.

Of a sort.

Eamon was looking at her steadily. Isolde was leaning on his shoulder, his eyes closed, silent tears leaking from her eyes. "I believe we needed to hear that, Grey Warden," he said. "Thank you."

He leaned over and put his forehead against the top of Isolde's head, closing his eyes, and Kathil looked away. That was a moment between them she was not meant to witness. Then Eamon got up and gently pulled Isolde to her feet. "I will be only a moment. We have much else to discuss." He escorted Isolde out of the room, and she could hear him speaking to someone on the other side of the door.

Uneasy, Kathil glanced at Zevran and then Leliana. "What else could he want?" she asked. But before either of the other two could answer, Eamon was coming back into the room.

"Isolde has been having a difficult time," he said. "We all have. Too much of it was not knowing what was going to happen to Connor, what his life was going to be like. If I may impose on you later, Isolde will probably have some more questions. But we have something else to discuss, Kathil." He sat back and put an elbow on the armrest of his chair. "I'd like to ask you to consider stepping up as the Warden-General in Ferelden."

Shock washed over her. He could _not_ be serious. He was _not—_

There was no hint of a smile on his face.

_Maker_, she wished the world would give her warning when it was about to all spiral out of control yet _again…_


	4. The Water from Your Well

**Four: The Water from Your Well**

* * *

_Author's note: Cullen-centric chapter. We'll get back to the politics soon enough. Also, about here is where this story starts working hard to earn its rating. _

_There will be a delay of a few days before the next chapter—my writing time is about to be a bit more restricted. I hope this is enough to hold everyone until then._

_

* * *

  
_

_Kathil:_

"My pardon, Eamon—but _what_? _Why?_"

The former Arl of Redcliffe raked one hand over his hair. "Unless I am vastly mistaken, you were not born yet when the Battle of River Dane was fought, correct?"

She shook her head. "I was born ten years after."

"Then you have only ever known a free Ferelden," Eamon said. "I spent the first half of my life under the constant threat of Orlesian invasion, and then under the rule of the Empire. This land has bitter memories of foreign rule, between the Avvars and the Orlesians. Just because there is a treaty between Ferelden and Orlais now does not mean that the Orlesians have given up all thoughts of claiming this land as theirs. They simply have to go about it more quietly, for the moment."

She thought it through. "And the Orlesian Grey Wardens might be a part of that."

"Alistair mentioned there was an…incident." Eamon shook his head. "He didn't give me any details. All he said was that he thought that Orlesian Grey Wardens were not as neutral as they ought to be." His gaze rested thoughtfully on Leliana.

"Leliana is Fereldan-born, Eamon," she said, hurrying to deflect the line of thought she could see in his eyes. "As much a Fereldan as I am. And, yes. The incident." She drew a breath in. "Surely there's someone else? There are almost a hundred Fereldan Grey Wardens now. One or two of them must be _vastly_ more qualified than I am to be Warden-General." She searched her memory; she hadn't paid nearly as much attention to the letters she'd been sent from the Wardens as she ought to have, and the letters themselves were safely stowed in her quarters in the Tower. "There was an elf—Davarrine, I think—she was one of the leaders of the archers the Dalish sent. I remember her a little, I liked her."

"Qualified? Probably. _More _qualified?" Eamon quirked his mouth. "I believe that the woman who united this country to fight the Blight has impeccable qualifications. And is the only person that the Wardens here will accept as a leader without question. Fractious lot, you are."

Kathil chewed briefly on the inside of her lip. "What's your stake in this, Eamon? I mean, yes, the Orlesian Grey Wardens have to go, but I don't understand your angle."

"I simply am enjoying peace, and want it to continue." Eamon shifted and scratched at his beard. "You have not been around for a few years. The quiet is very tenuous. Alistair and Rima have been solidifying their hold on the monarchy, but the heat of victory is beginning to fade, as is the goodwill that victory confers. They are about to see a true test, I believe, and when that test comes it will be valuable to have you visible in the Grey Wardens. Alistair is going to need your support, Kathil. And it is _not_ support you can lend from the Tower." Kathil opened her mouth to reply, but he held up a hand. "If my information is correct, one of your intentions is to make the Circle a power in this country again, to take the place they lost when they did not raise a hand to help Maric against Meghren. It's going to be a very unpopular move. But it will be far less so if the Circle of Magi is seen as being allied with the Grey Wardens."

"Why?" she asked, frowning.

Eamon chuckled. "The Grey Wardens are seen as neutral, focused only on fighting darkspawn, no matter what the reality may be. The Circle allying itself with the Wardens would mean they inherit that neutrality. And if the same person were at the head of them both—you can see the potential for certain attitudes about the Circle to alter, yes? The Circle again has a purpose other than simply being a prison to keep dangerous powers away from the unsuspecting. And perhaps things can—change."

_We do this because it is far kinder than the alternative,_ Irving had told her once in a late-night conference. _Best to make the breaks quick than to let the connections between mages and their families die a slow death. Best for the families to tell themselves that their sons and daughters are dead, so that when the worst happens, they do not mourn again._

Kathil _hated_ that necessity, and so many others. And she could _see_ it, see a Circle of Magi given new purpose, mages given the chance to use the powers that they spent their lives learning to control. A Circle mended, the Templars partners rather than enemies.

Maker's _Breath_.

She had just been _played._

"That was why you brought Isolde with you today," she said, almost choking. "Not just to let her apologize, but to remind me of everything that is wrong with the Circle. _Why_ I ever think of you as trustworthy, Eamon, I will never know."

Eamon smiled. "Isolde insisted, actually, but I thought her presence could not hurt. I know you, Kathil. You're bright, you're driven, and I think it is safer for Ferelden if you're kept busy. Wouldn't do for you to get bored, would it?"

Kathil shook her head, then touched the Warden's Oath around her neck. She glanced at Zevran, who had _just_ the slightest smile on his lips, and at Leliana, whose bright blue eyes were calm and a little amused. No help from there. "I'll consider it, Eamon. I'm in a…ticklish position, when it comes to the Circle. Irving likes me and wants me to take the First Enchanter position when he dies or retires. Preferably the latter. But the Circle has no _official_ power over me, since the Right of Conscription was invoked when I was recruited. It makes some of the other Senior Enchanters nervous."

As did the fact that she had disappeared for two years, and almost the moment she had come back she had been Fade-struck. As did the fact that she had been out in the world, using the power that the Maker had given her. As did the fact that she had a Mabari and she was sharing her bed with someone who was most decidedly _not_ a mage.

"You don't have to decide right now. Ser Laurens is currently serving." Eamon drummed his fingers briefly on the arm of his chair. "Though if we can send the Orlesians packing, I'd like to have it done by the fall. Gives them a chance to be on their way back home before the snow flies."

She set her jaw. "You are a sly old wolf, Eamon. And I mean that in the best possible way. You'll have your answer by the end of the summer. I have to send a letter to Irving and have him figure out if there's any precedent for one mage serving two masters."

"All I ask is that you consider it." He rose, groaning a little. "I swear these chairs get more and more padded and harder to get out of every year. If you'll excuse me, Grey Warden, I should go see to Isolde."

Kathil nodded and let him go. She let out a gusty breath and set her head against the high back of her chair, closing her eyes. "This is…a complication I wasn't expecting."

"I think you should consider it," Leliana said. She kicked off her light shoes and curled her legs under her in her chair, leaning on one elbow on the armrest. "Just think! All of those lovely long days spent ordering men and women in armor around." Kathil rolled her eyes, and Leliana laughed. "I jest, dearest, but I do think you shouldn't dismiss it out of hand. Eamon has a point."

"Eamon never opens his mouth _unless_ he has a point," she grumbled. "That's part of the reason he's so sodding dangerous. Zevran? What do you think?"

He'd slung one leg over the arm of his chair, and was looking at her with a steady gaze. "I think," he said, and his voice had a gravity she rarely heard from him, "that every breath is a choice, my Grey Warden. And I think you owe the Circle nothing."

She touched her Oath again. "That's true. But if I can make life a little easier for those brought to the Tower…"

"That is a very different thing than being obligated, yes?" He smiled, and the grave tone slipped from his voice. "Do not fret. The decision will come clear in time. It always does."

_It does, at that._ She smiled at him and shoved herself up and out of the chair. "Remind me to give Alistair a talking-to when I see him next. I'm guessing he put Eamon up to this."

Leliana snorted gently. "If he did, he has more brains than most give him credit for. Where are you off to, dearest?"

"Where am I _always_ off to? The library." She stretched, raising herself up on her toes. "I have work to do. If either of you see Cullen, tell him to come find me."

Zevran was on his feet now, behind her. She leaned back into him as he wrapped his arms around her. "I will," he said, and his breath was warm in her ear, tickling. She made an appreciative noise in the back of her throat. "And I will see you at dinner, yes?"

"Unless something seriously untoward…mmm." She forgot what she was talking about as one of his hands came up to brush against her breast. "Zev, you are a distracting man. Work. I have work."

He murmured something, one of those Antivan phrases that he never translated for her, and released her. She turned to kiss him, hard, then went to hug Leliana. Then went out into the Hall of the Landsmeet, Lorn following, considering _Warden-General_ and _Circle mage_ and all of the things those two terms implied.

*****

_Cullen:_

She always retreated into her books when she was troubled.

All she would say to him was _Isolde was there_ and _Eamon asked me if I'd volunteer to be Ferelden's Warden-General_ and he _wished_ he'd been there with her that morning rather than following Leliana's orders to go have pins stuck in him by the most sadistic seamstress he'd ever met. And he wondered what it would mean, for her to be Warden-General, and what it would mean for _him_.

Her head was bent over a book, and she was furiously scratching notes on a stack of paper. Now wasn't the time to ask, obviously.

Instead, he staged a retreat of his own, into that nearly meditative state of watchful waiting drilled into him by years of Templar training. He stood with his feet planted, hands at his sides. The scratch of Kathil's quill and Lorn's soft snores were the only sound that broke the silence of the library. Beyond the library, he could hear people talking, dogs barking, the crash as someone dropped what sounded like a piece of armor or a cooking pot.

The scratching slowed, then stopped.

"Do you miss the Tower, Cullen?"

He blinked. "What?"

She was still looking at her notes, though he didn't think she actually saw them. "It's a simple question. Do you miss it?"

"Er." Why was she asking this? "Sometimes," he replied carefully. "I mostly miss some of the other Templars. And this time of year, we'd be swimming a lot in Lake Calenhad. And I miss the way the halls sounds, oddly enough. And…the mages, or at least seeing magic worked. Even though I knew it was dangerous, it was also pretty a lot of the time. It was home for a long time, but when we go back, it won't be the same. They _did_ kick me out. Why?"

She wiped her quill's tip with a dark-stained cloth and picked up the little knife in the inkstand. She trimmed the end, shaving it off just so. She held it up, blowing a breath over it critically. "I should probably get some of those nibs I saw for sale in Orzammar. I didn't think of it when I was there, and I haven't been back. If I become Warden-General, we're likely not going to see as much of the Tower as I thought we were. I wondered if you minded."

"I liked Amaranthine," he said carefully. "Because of the port and it being close to Denerim, there's a lot of traders coming through, more in the spring and summer according to the other Wardens. Winter there is a lot warmer than it is in the Tower. And everyone is mad for paintings." At her disbelieving look, he shrugged. "There's a freehold nearby where artists from all over come to study and paint and such. Don't ask me, I think a lot of them are awful. There's one person who I think just throws pots of paint at the canvas and then sells those canvases for a lot of sovereigns."

"Yes, but you have an _opinion_. Did you ever have an opinion on art before you went to Amaranthine?"

"Not a whole lot of art in the Tower—new art, anyway," he said. "Hard to form an opinion on something you've never seen much of."

"I wonder." Kathil ran her thumb over the newly sharpened tip of her quill. "The problem is, Cullen, that there is no good reason to _not_ become Warden-General. Except that I rather hate the idea."

"Why?" he asked her.

She put the quill down on the table and wriggled around in her chair to face him. "Because I got taken out of the Tower as a mage who had just passed her Harrowing, and a month later I was one of only two Grey Wardens in Ferelden and for some _ridiculous_ reason I was in _charge_. I went for an entire year half hoping, half dreading that someone was finally going to look at me and figure out that I had no sodding _idea_ what I was doing."

"You broke the Blight," he pointed out. "Killed an Archdemon. Killed Uldred."

"Arl Howe, Loghain, Branka—well, Loghain wasn't officially me, Alistair executed him—a bunch of werewolves, Flemeth—" She was ticking names off on her fingers. "Point me at someone who needs to die and I do a _very_ good job. That doesn't mean I'm a good leader."

Lorn had woken up, and came over to sit in front of his human, plopping his massive head in her lap. She stroked his head absently.

Cullen furrowed his brow in disbelief. "Wait. You're telling me that you don't want to become Warden-General because you think you'd be _bad_ at it?"

"Ah." There was an oddly puzzled look on her face. "I—yes. Yes? I'm just a _mage_, Cullen."

"Just a mage," he said quietly. "If you really _want_ to go back to the Tower, that's one thing. But if you don't want to be Warden-General because you're _scared_—"

He closed his mouth, because her dark eyes were widening and he wasn't exactly sure what that look on her face portended. And that was probably a lot more than he ought to have said.

Kathil twisted her mouth, the scar on the side of her face pulling her skin oddly, and looked down at Lorn's head in her lap. "The funny thing is that I think the old wolf has the right of it. If I can keep my position in the Circle and be the Warden-General, that may be one of the best things I could do for the Circle. I could help things change. Maybe not in our lifetimes, but maybe in Prince Duncan's. When the idea isn't _quite_ so new…I will think about it."

He stepped forward and put a hand on her shoulder. "You have some time, I hear."

She nodded and looked up at him, and he was very aware of the nearness of her, of the way her lips were parting slightly. _If this changes anything, Cullen_, she'd said yesterday, when she'd told him about his parents and about the lie she'd told.

It changed nothing, he knew.

And taking his courage in both of his hands, Cullen leaned down and pressed a kiss to her lips.

One of her hands snaked up to the back of his neck, and the kiss wasn't the frenetic, confusing thing that their first kiss had been. He still wasn't sure of exactly what he was doing, but from the little sounds she was making, at least he wasn't doing it _entirely_ wrong.

And then her hand tightened and slid up into his hair, and he forgot to think at all.

It was approximately an eternity later when they parted. "That—" Whatever Kathil had been about to say was interrupted by a low, urgent _whuff_ from Lorn. "Someone's coming," she said, and let go of him.

Cullen made haste to straighten up and get back into his spot. The approaching footsteps turned out to belong to one of the archivists, bringing Kathil a few books fresh out of a shipment from Rivain. The mage thanked the woman so sweetly, and with such perfect composure, that Cullen would never have guessed that a moment before she'd been embroiled in a passionate kiss.

Except, perhaps, for the faint flush that was spreading across her face.

Once the archivist had retreated to the other side of the library, Kathil looked out the window. "Isn't it about time for you to go visit Fiann?" she asked. "I think I'm going to go see if I can get one of the guards to spar with me. I think I'd like to stretch my legs."

"Probably. Kathil—"

She put a finger to her lips and inclined her head towards the sound of paper sliding against paper that were coming from the archivist across the room. "I'll see you at dinner." She shoved her chair back and thumped her book closed, shoving her now-dry notes beneath it.

She smiled at him and began to walk. He fell in at her shoulder, Lorn on her other side. The Mabari was prancing a bit, his stubby tail flailing. His human was _happy_, said that tail. And so Lorn was happy.

They walked in silence to where he had to turn for the kennels, and she would go straight to the guard barracks. They were, for a moment, alone.

Kathil slung an arm around his neck. "I'm going to be sorry when you have to go back to wearing armor all the time," she said. "You look good out of it." Then she kissed him soundly, and again there was that strange chest-tightening feeling of the whole world spinning in on itself. She let go of him, and said, "Don't make any plans for the evening, Cullen."

Then she was gone, retreating down the hall with Lorn, and he was standing there with his ears burning and what he suspected might be a rather large grin on his face.

*****

_Zevran:_

Ah, something _had_ happened earlier today.

Kathil was sitting to his right, with an expression on her face very few would likely be able to read. She was moving with calm deliberation, every motion restrained, keeping a grin trapped behind her teeth. They were near one end of the long table that served as an intimate dining space for Alistair and Rima, placed safely away from the royal couple.

Rima ignored the mage. Kathil ignored the Princess Consort. For the moment, a fragile détente appeared to have been established, though whether it was because Rima had given up or because her next game was going to be longer than her first it was difficult to say. _The latter, more likely_.

He took the basket of rolls from Leliana, snagged two, and dropped them both on Kathil's plate. "You will need to keep up your strength, yes?" he murmured to her. "For unless I am very mistaken, you have certain pleasures planned for tonight."

She snatched one of the rolls from her plate and took a savage bite. "I do," she mumbled as she chewed, then swallowed. "Is it that obvious?"

"Only to me, little bird," he said. "And perhaps our Chantry mouse, who looks as though she might be having some difficulty keeping a straight face."

Next to him, Leliana leaned over, wrinkling her nose. "Why do you always call me that, Zevran?" She exaggerated her pronunciation of his name, placing all the emphasis on the last syllable. "It has been years since I was a lay sister."

"Because, my dear, it annoys you." He smiled at the bard. "And because your eyes are quite bright, yes? Though your bosom…so very un-mouse-like."

"_Maybe_ if you were the _very_ last person in Ferelden," Leliana said. "Though only maybe." She craned her neck around to see Cullen, sitting on Kathil's right, looking as though he were attempting to ignore them all. The bard lowered her voice. "_Do_ be gentle with him, dearest."

Just the very slightest smile curved Kathil's lips. "No promises."

Cullen's hand froze in the act of reaching for his cup, and fisted briefly.

Leliana steered the conversation to safer topics, launching into a story involving a griffon, a mud puddle, and a cloak of brambles. Soon enough, the King and the Princess Consort were taking their leave. Alistair looked as though he would have come down to speak to them, but Rima set her hand on his arm, and he turned away. They had barely seen him during their time in Denerim.

Then they were all getting up from the table. At a quiet word from Kathil, Cullen went ahead, and the mage put her arm around Zevran and pulled him into an alcove down the hall from the royal dining room. "Last chance," she said as she pulled him into an embrace.

Zevran kissed her forehead. "Simply return to me, my Grey Warden, and I am well content."

"Always." She breathed the word more than said it. "I will be back late." Then her hungry mouth was on his, and for a time there was silence between them.

She was gone soon after, presumably to Cullen's room. Zevran shook his head, chuckling, and headed up the stairs to the wall walk; the guards up there knew him, and he enjoyed looking out over Denerim as dusk fell.

Besides, tonight he had on his mind two women. One of them his Grey Warden, a woman of blades and ice and that surprising streak of softness in her.

The other a dark-haired woman, five years and as many lifetimes ago.

"_I love you," he murmured against her throat._

"_That makes two of us, Zevran. For I am very fond of myself, yes?" One of Rinna's hands slid down his side as he breathed her in, cinnamon and seawater. "Ah, I jest. Of course I love you. I think we may take over the cell together, yes? You and me and Taliesen. After this contract is over."_

_He and Taliesen_ _killed her before the next sunset, and Zevran laughed at her dying pleas that she was innocent of all betrayal. That she had been telling the truth, they had not discovered until later._

_That was how love ended. With someone dead._

He watched darkness steal over Denerim, and contemplated the past and the present.

*****

_Kathil:_

She handed Cullen the little cup, filled to the brim with the intoxicating substance that the Orelsians called _joie_. She filled her own cup only halfway; _joie_ didn't seem to affect her control of her magic the same way alcohol did, but it was still quite strong. "To life," she said, and lifted her cup towards him, sitting across from her in his room. "And all of the unexpected places it takes us."

Cullen raised his cup and sipped, closing his eyes. Kathil took a breath and did the same. It burned all the way down into her stomach, spreading warm outward and mixing with the nerves that were twisting in her. "Did you mean what you said, earlier?" Cullen asked. "About me looking good out of armor?"

"You _are_ a handsome man," she said, and tipped her chin up a bit. "It was a little strange at first, but I think it makes you look a little more human. Mages aren't supposed to think of Templars as humans. Thus, the armor and the helms."

He blinked. "You think I'm—"

"Yes," she said, and grinned. "I wouldn't be here if I didn't, Cullen. Finish your _joie_. I want to show you something."

From the speculative look in his eyes, he was very curious indeed about what she wanted to show him. They both drank the rest of their cups, and Kathil got to her feet, offering her hand to Cullen. She pulled him up, and led him over to the window. "I noticed this the other day, and I think she'll be back soon. See the ledge, there?" She pointed across the courtyard. "It leads into a little niche."

They were standing close enough to each other that she could feel the heat radiating off Cullen. It took just a moment for her to sidle a little closer to him, until their bodies were touching. "Ah, there she is. See?" A lithe black cat, carrying what looked like a rat, hopped up to a window ledge, then to the top of a window, and with a prodigious leap she landed on the ledge. She vanished into the niche. "I think she has kittens in there," Kathil said.

"That…doesn't seem very safe." He frowned. "They'll break their necks when they try to leave."

"She probably thinks of it as a safe place, no matter how dangerous it might become later." She slipped an arm around him, and she was looking up into his eyes and he down into hers.

That was the last moment of _before_.

*****

_Cullen:_

When she kissed him, her mouth tasted like _joie_ and ice.

Her body was pressed against his, one of her legs coming around to hook behind his ankle. Her mouth on his was searching, probing, withdrawing a little and then pressing forward, almost parting and then she changed her mind, her lips rejoining his.

He had imagined this so many times, but the reality was vastly different. He'd never thought about teeth, or the fact that they were both very new to one another. But it was still wonderful, and soon enough the two of them began to learn one each other, to figure out how to coordinate lips and teeth and tongue.

When they finally stopped kissing for a moment, both of them were breathing hard. Kathil was flushed, and he could feel her heart beating against his chest. She cupped his cheek in her hand, and her fingers were warm, almost burning. "Let me lead the dance tonight," she said softly. "There will be other nights, but there will ever only be one first time."

He nodded, all of his words deserting him.

Kathil pulled him towards the bed, and they kicked off their shoes and lay down. There was more kissing, both of them stretched out along each other. Then she'd pulled his shirt off, and it didn't seem _quite_ fair that she was still fully dressed, but she was running a possessive hand over his skin and he was not exactly going to complain just yet. "I have wanted to do this for so long," she murmured. "You have _no_ idea, Cullen. You really do not."

Then her mouth was at his ear and his neck and she stopped talking and he stopped thinking.

Eventually, both of them shed their clothes, and _that_ was a revelation too, how soft her skin was between the scar, velvet and silk. He remembered flinching when he'd first seen her shoulder, but now it was just another part of her, like the nape of her neck and the swell of her breasts where they pressed into him. And the _strength_ of her, muscle hard under her skin, collarbones with the most fascinating hollows just above them where her scent was intoxicatingly strong. Sometime in there, the sun had gone down, and his room was now dark with only a little moonlight sneaking in through the window.

"Just enjoy this," she said into his ear, and then her hand was running along his length and he arched his back, pressing himself into her fingers, trying to remember—something—what was he supposed to—

Then she shifted and her hand was joined by her mouth, with wet lips and tongue and he was tumbling abruptly forward into a starry darkness that he thought might be either the Fade or death and he didn't care which it was.

By the time he had recovered, she was lying along his body again, and in the dark he could feel her smile. When she kissed him again, her mouth tasted like ice and _joie_ and, yes, himself, a salty-sweet musk that he found he didn't mind one bit. "Don't worry, we're just getting started," she said. "Now. Time for a few lessons, I think."

She taught. He learned.

To touch her like _this_ and listen to the soft music of her breathing, to move his hand _there_ and hear her give a pleading moan, to slide a finger like _that_ and feel her body press against him, shameless, greedy, wanting _more_. To feel the tension in her body come to a sudden peak and have her voice spiral up into a near-scream, her whole body shuddering, and he _understood_ so many of the half-truths the Templars shared between each other at night, and it was nothing like he had imagined but it was perfect.

She turned her face into his shoulder, and he put his arms around her and pulled her close, feeling little aftershocks shivering through her. "You are beautiful," he whispered fiercely.

"And _you_ are going to be dangerous, with a bit of practice." Kathil lifted her head a bit. "You catch on quickly."

He could feel himself go a bit red, but in the darkness with both of them naked and the blanket twisted beneath them, it didn't seem to matter. He stroked a hand down her back, feeling the knobs of her spine beneath the skin and muscle, and it seemed so _strange_ that he had never touched anyone like this before. Not just like before, like _that_, but lying together in the dark running his hand along her skin just because it felt good to do so, and from the way he could feel her relax under his hand it felt good to her as well.

He probably should feel guilty, but—

Cullen was no longer the Chantry child he had been raised to be. The Templars had kicked him out, the Grey Wardens had nearly executed him, and this woman had taken him in, defended him, made him hers.

In many more ways than one, he realized, a little belatedly.

_Then, that was always the truth, wasn't it?_

One of her hands was free, and that hand was moving on his skin, and it seemed like the most natural thing in the world to kiss her again, to drop his mouth to her neck and kiss and then nip, carefully, and her gasp was both surprised and pleased. He thought there might be a lesson to be learned there, but her hands on him were becoming insistent, and he was not entirely sure what she had in mind—

She shifted, levered herself up and threw a leg over him, and there was a hard part of him nestled against a part of her that was wet like the Waking Sea, warm like she was not ice and lightning but fire. The light coming from the window illuminated her only in patches—a lock of pale hair tumbling forward to brush against his face, her lips, her shoulder with its scars like shadows.

Kathil bent forward, her lips at his ear. "If you learn nothing else tonight, know this," she said in a low, urgent voice. "This is something the Maker intended for all of His children to know. This is the closest I have ever come to knowing what it is to be holy."

With that, she slid down on him.

They moved together, slowly, learning. Then more quickly, ancient rhythms driving them together, she still above him and moving on him, and there was an urgency rising in both of them—he gasped _I—_and she whispered _now—_

Then he was falling upward into that starry blackness again, only this time she was with him, clinging to him, shivering and grounding him and _there_.

Some eternity passed.

She was collapsed forward on him, surprisingly heavy, but her weight and her warmth was comforting. Both of them were silent. Cullen could feel her heart pounding, still.

After a time, they disentangled from each other a bit. Kathil curled so her head was resting on his shoulder, and he shifted so he could put both arms around her. They rested together, wordless, for some time. Sleep was beginning to tug at the edges of Cullen's mind.

"I should go," Kathil said. He felt her lips moving against the skin of his chest. "I will see you in the morning, Cullen."

And it felt like he _ought_ to be upset, that she was leaving his bed for another man's, but—he wasn't. He was too sleepy to decipher what that might mean. "In the morning, then. Kathil, that was…" He paused, lost in all of the possibilities of _wonderful_ and _amazing_ and _completely astonishing_.

She kissed him again before he could decide which of the many words he wanted to use. "Yes," she said, and there was a purr in her voice. "It was."

Then she was up and gathering her clothes, and he felt the Veil tear slightly and she was gone, not through the door but through the wall that separated his room from her and Zevran's.

He fell asleep soon after, surrounded still by the scent of her, and did not dream.

*****

_Kathil:_

Zevran was awake.

"Ah, you return," came his voice through the darkness of their room. "Have a good time?"

"Very," she said, and paused to drop her clothes on a chair. Lorn woke and whuffed at her. "Go back to sleep, puppy, it's just me."

She crawled into bed, curled up against Zevran, seeking his familiar warmth. He put an arm over her and pulled her close. "I told you I would come back," she said.

He did not answer, only kissed her gently, lingeringly. She closed her eyes. She was safe within the circle of his arms, and now she could sleep.

She was home.


	5. Follow the Lady

**Five: ****Follow the Lady**

**

* * *

**

_Author's Note: "Follow the Lady" is another name for the street con known as Three-card Monte, a variant of the shell game. _

_My thanks to those who have been patiently waiting for the next chapter. This one turned out to be so long that I split it in two. Chapter Six will be up tonight as well.  
_

_

* * *

  
_

_Kathil:_

_Maker, save me from the scheming of nobles._

Tonight, it had been one of the southern banns trying to convince her to take his side in an argument over who had to maintain the road that marked the boundary between his bannorn and that of his western neighbor. The man thought he was so smooth, inviting her to the Gnawed Noble and making such a _show_ over the fact that he was unafraid to be seen out in public with a mage. It was as if simple courtesy—or treating her as she a person instead of a mage—was such a very extraordinary accomplishment that he felt the need to show it off to the world.

Which made her very tired, and rather obstreperous.

Cullen and Lorn, unfortunately, had to stay with her during the entire wearisome spectacle. Once they'd gotten back to the palace, it was nearly midnight, and she'd sent Cullen off to bed (and to let Lorn into her room) and gone to find a bath to soak away the grime she always felt accumulating on her skin during these times.

One of the very good things about being a mage was that even a lukewarm bath could be made hot, with a bit of effort. After half an hour of soaking, and washing her hair, she started to feel a bit better, and much less likely to try to start a quarrel with Zevran once she got back to their room. Not that it was _easy_ to bait Zev into a fight, but it was silly to even try when she knew her mood had nothing to do with him.

Now she was padding back to her own room, pleasantly warm from her bath, her hair straggling down her back damply. The summer masque was only two days away, and when she wasn't meeting with obsequious banns, she was being fussed over by Leliana. Lei had even brought her _perfume_, today. "I think it will suit you," the bard had told her. "It is the oil of a flower common in Orlais but that we see little of this far south."

When Kathil had sniffed the little vial, she smelled moonlight and silver, rounded underneath by something that she could not name. "What's it called?" she asked.

"_Lavande_," Leliana had told her. "When I smelled it today, it reminded me of you."

And that was enough to warm Kathil's heart (and certain other parts of her, but there was a complicated little tangle and she tried to ignore it as much as she could). Remembering it made her smile.

The palace was slumbering around her as she walked down the long hallway back to her rooms. She didn't expect to see anyone, but there was a movement down in the dim. She assumed it was a guard, walking a midnight round, but the figure moved in an entirely familiar way.

Was that—

"Kathil!" Alistair called from down the hall. "What are you doing up?"

She waited to reply until she was closer, and saw that he held a bundle in his arms. "Just got back from being fawned over by Bann Diarmaid," she told him. "What are _you_ doing up?"

Alistair shifted the bundle in his arms. "Duncan's having a fretful night," he said. "He'll only calm down when someone's walking with him. I decided to take a turn."

The babe was awake, Kathil saw, and this was the closest she'd ever been to him. "He looks like you," she said. "He has Rima's eyes, though."

"And her toes, believe it or not," Alistair said, and there was such a warm smile on his face when he looked down at his son. "Do you want to hold him?"

Kathil blinked. "Ah—I've never really held a baby before—never had a chance, really."

"First time for everything. Here." Then he was holding out the child to her, and she reached for him before she could let herself argue.

Duncan was heavier than she'd expected, and he looked up at her with his tiny brow furrowed like he was trying to decide if she were real. _You and half the population of Denerim, I think._ "He's beautiful, Alistair. He really is."

It was so strange, to be holding Alistair's son, all the echoes of what had been and what would never be weighing her arms along with the baby. It had once been a bitter, angry thought, that she would never have children of her own; now, it was simply bittersweet, a bit of wistful mourning for an impossibility. Experimentally, she tried rocking her arms a bit, and was rewarded with Duncan's eyes closing as he evidently decided that she was all right. He waved one fist in the air briefly, then settled into her arms as if he belonged there, as if she were not simply borrowing him for a moment.

She glanced up at Alistair, who had a contemplative look on his face. "I thought this would be easier," he said, then shook his head. "Rima really, ah—"

"Hates the fact that I exist?" She saw the rueful look on his face. "Hard to miss, Alistair. Too much bad blood there, I think, and I threaten to upset the balance of what she's building. It doesn't help that some of the banns have decided to fawn over me like I'm some treasure to be won."

"She isn't a bad person, Kathil," he said. "I thought you two would get along."

"Well, we never have. Not at first, not now, probably not ever." Kathil grimaced. "I really was terrible to her when she first got here, Alistair. I hated the fact that she was going to get to marry you and I wasn't. And now…" She shrugged a little, doing her best not to jostle the baby. "I'll be gone soon enough. And I'm not going to ask you to pick sides. She's your wife, I'm your friend. Not difficult to see who wins there."

He nodded shallowly, acknowledging her words. "Speaking of you being gone, Kathil. Eamon mentioned he'd spoken to you about the Warden-General position…"

"I haven't decided yet. I have a bit more time yet." Duncan opened his eyes again and pursed his lips, stating to make little _ah ah ah_ noises like he was thinking about starting to cry. Kathil held him out to Alistair, who took him exactly as if he'd been handling babies all of his life.

_He did grow up in Redcliffe. They probably had babies there._ Unlike, say, the Tower. Which had only children old enough to cast magic, to shrink silently against the walls with running noses and haunted eyes.

"True enough," Alistair said. "I should go, but before I do, I heard a _very_ interesting rumor the other day. Something to do with you and the Grey Warden Cullen."

She lifted one eyebrow slightly. That had gotten out, had it? They were trying to be discreet, but people did talk. "And what concern does the king of Ferelden have with my personal life?"

"Not as the king, Kathil. As your friend. Who is worried about you."

She gave him a sharp look. "Cullen is a Grey Warden, and an adult, and if he and I choose to keep company and Zevran doesn't object, there is no harm done. And, I might had, it is really _none_ of your business, Alistair."

Alistair was frowning. "Are you in love with him, Kathil?"

"None of your business _whatsoever_." There was a sharp note in her voice that she tried to rein in. "I mean it. Whatever is between Cullen and I—and Zevran and I, for that matter—isn't something I'm willing to talk about with you."

He was looking at her as if trying to decipher what she wasn't saying. "All right," he said. "But if you ever want to talk about things…"

She blew out an annoyed breath. "Rima would probably try to have me killed if I met in private with you, Alistair. Let's just leave it, shall we?"

Unexpectedly, he chuckled a little. "We can do that," he said. "I should keep walking, or Duncan is going to start fussing again."

Kathil couldn't help a little smile. "Go, then. And—thank you, Alistair."

"For what?"

She looked at the baby in his arms, and then him. "For reminding me that there are some things I cannot change. And some that I can."

Then she was walking past him, to her room, and she did not look back.

When she closed the door behind her, she found the room emptier than she'd expected. That dice game that Zevran had gone to tonight had either gone longer or ended more _interestingly_ than he'd expected when they'd parted that afternoon, it seemed. He'd be back before dawn, she knew, and tomorrow would be a flurry of preparations for the masque.

But Lorn was here, and he stretched and came over to her. He'd been by himself for _forever_. She had been soaking in water for _such_ a long time. He gave her a hopeful wag.

"Yes, you can sleep on the bed for a bit," she said. "At least until Zevran gets back." Lorn opened his mouth in a grin, and then went to jump up on the bed, curling up at the foot of it.

She shed her robe and stretched out on the bed, pulling the thin blanket over her. No matter how warm it got, she always needed something over her to be able to sleep. She stuck her always-cold toes under Lorn, to warm them.

She drifted off to sleep, only to be woken by a soft whuff from Lorn and Zevran sliding into bed with her. "You're _cold_," she complained sleepily. "Game went well?"

He curled up behind her, putting one arm over her and pulling her close, quickly warming where their skin touched. "Would you believe I won the clothes off of five of the King's Guard tonight?" he said. "There were _most_ interesting forfeits."

"I'd believe it. Though you don't smell like you've been at an orgy." She opened her eyes a little. "It's almost dawn, isn't it?"

He kissed her hair. "It is, and I would like to get a bit of sleep before we must finish preparations for the masque."

Kathil closed her eyes again. She could tell him about her discussion with Alistair later. After some sleep. _And maybe I should hide those dice of Zevran's,_ the thought. _One of these days, the guards are going to figure out that they're loaded._

But she was warm now, and sleepy, and it could wait until morning.

*****

_Leliana:_

Everything was in place.

Well, _almost_ everything.

"Why do you get to see me, and Cullen and Zevran don't?" Kathil grumbled. "And I don't think that strap goes there."

"Ah, you are right," she said, and pulled the offending piece of material into its proper place at the mage's waist. "And you don't get to see them because I am _so_ looking forward to seeing them when they see you walk into the masque. Allow me this one little thing, dearest. Besides, their costumes are something to see, as well."

"So you keep saying. Are you absolutely sure I don't look foolish?"

"Not in the least." Leliana picked up the mask from its box. It was a fragile-looking thing, seemingly spun out of silver and white silk and air. "Mask now, and I will put my own on. Then we will go. I think Cullen and Zevran are already there."

Kathil fidgeted as Leliana fitted the mask to her face, anchoring it with combs in her elaborately braided hair, studded with sprays of silver. Leliana's own mask was also on the table, hers a three-quarters in deep browns and greens and autumnal reds. She touched the rim of an eye-hole, going over her preparations for this evening in her mind one last time. Had she thought of everything?

If she had not, the _jeu de blaireau_ was unlikely to end as she wished it to.

Kathil's hands, helping her place her mask and secure it to her face, were careful and trembling just slightly. The _lavande_ perfume suited her, complemented her mage's scent of lightning. "I cannot believe I am going out in public dressed like this. But you look amazing, Lei."

"Trust me, dearest, when I say you do as well. I think the mask is _quite_ well fitted, yes?"

Leliana did not have to be able to see her friend's face to know that she had an adorable look of embarrassed recognition on it. Kathil's fingers had been lingering on Leliana's jaw, just a little too long. "It'll stay on, at least. I almost wish I could bring Lorn, but I think he'll be happier spending time with the other Mabari for the night. Shall we? "

She offered her arm to the mage. "We shall."

They made their way through the halls—first deserted, but closer to the great hall far more crowded. As they passed through the last large archway before the hall. Leliana spied a man wearing a costume meant to resemble a chevalier and a mask painted to resemble a face with shut eyes and a meaningful pout. She caught his eye, and with two fingers tapped her thigh three times.

_All is in readiness. Let the _jeu_ begin._

The chevalier bowed slightly, and turned away.

They emerged from the darkness of the arch into the light of the great hall, and the game began.

*****

_Zevran:_

He had worried that he would miss his Grey Warden's entrance into the hall.

No fear of _that_.

In the archway, where flames danced in glass lanterns, there was a murmur and a commotion of people turning. He turned as well, and what he saw very well made the breath freeze in his chest.

No mask could ever hide his Grey Warden's identity from him, and as she stood in the arch she was a blaze of white and silver, her chin held high. Draped silk lay over her scarred shoulder, hiding it. But the rest—

If he had ever doubted the bard's powers of persuasion, he never would again.

The main part of Kathil's costume was an assortment of white straps, crisscrossing her body. To those straps were attached white and silver scarves of varying levels of translucency, and as she walked forward, those scarves fluttered and showed the most _tempting_ glimpses of her skin. Her legs were almost entirely bare, except for a few decorative straps, and she wore soft shoes of fragile white leather. She _shone_.

Her mask was an elaborate affair of silver and white, framing her eyes and dipping down to almost cover her mouth. There were chips of cut glass at the edges of it, glittering. Even the mask had been made to complement the curve of her mouth.

She was dressed as Winter, as the season of death and slumber, and the crowd parted around her as she strode towards him and Cullen.

Beside her, Leliana was wearing a dress cut down nearly to her navel, recalling a certain witch and her complete lack of regard for Ferelden decency . The deep neckline was complemented by a long layered skirt, all of it in dark reds and browns. Her mask was overlapping leaves in red and green and brown, and her full lips were curved as she accompanied Kathil towards them. The theme had been her idea, and she had claimed Autumn before she'd even spoken with him and Cullen.

Cullen, next to him, made a low noise. "Maker's _Breath_."

For once, he agreed with the sentiment.

Cullen was costumed as Spring, the soft greens and blues of his cutwork shirt going well with his close-cropped reddish curls. The shirt and trousers and high-laced boots were all closely cut, showing off the fact that the former Templar was a very well-built man indeed. His mask was a simple affair, a half-mask of dyed silk in the same colors as his clothing. Leliana had elected not to make anything about this costume fussy, knowing that doing so would overwhelm him. Best to let that body speak for itself.

Then, of course, there was his own costume.

Kathil was close, now, and she stopped and smiled at the two of them. "_Very_ nice, both of you. Zev, remind me later that you look good in gold. And Cullen, you have to go back to that seamstress and have her make you more of those shirts." She grinned and spread her arms, twirling around in a way that made her scarves flutter out and show _quite_ a lot of skin. "What do you think?"

He answered that by catching her arm with a hand and pulling her close. "I think you are going to break the hearts of hundreds of people tonight, my Grey Warden," he said, and ran his hand under her chin, tilting her face upward so he could kiss her without their masks getting entangled. "You shine like the moon herself."

"And you're looking altogether sun-like, so we're well-matched," Kathil said. "I think that seamstress deliberately decided to show off most of my favorite parts of you. Those pants are nearly obscene, you know."

"I had her make them that way, yes? Since you have complimented me on my posterior so often." He kissed her again and released her. "Go tell your Templar how very handsome he is tonight, Kathil. That seamstress is surely a witch, is she not? He is looking _most_ tempting."

"He is, isn't he?" Behind the mask, he could see her eyes close halfway. "I think this is going to be a _quite _pleasant evening." She stepped over to Cullen, and caught his hands in hers. She spoke to him in a low voice, and whatever she said to him made him bite his lower lip. Then she rose to her toes and kissed him, lips lingering on his for a long moment.

They were usually circumspect, but this one night was an exception.

On the dais, the music began, and so did the dancing in the hall.

*****

_Cullen:_

Costumes swirled around him as if they were in Rima's bower and the sun were shining through the glass.

_Behind a mask, we are allowed to be who we truly are,_ Leliana's voice whispered in his memory.

It was not anonymity, not with Kathil catching what seemed like every bit of light in the room and throwing it back twice magnified, but he was emboldened by it anyway. The King and Princess Consort entered; from the looks of things, the royal couple had decided to avoid costumes that referenced anything specific, instead wearing complementary outfits of gold and blue, and matching masks. Alistair wore elaborate gloves of metal and leather that resembled gauntlets.

Kathil had her hands in his, and she was leading him towards the center of the hall, where people were lining up to begin one of the dances. "Leliana told me she taught you some of the dances," she said, and when he turned to her she was smiling. "Let's test that, shall we?"

Then he was in place, and she was across from him, and they were advancing on each other, matching step for step. At first he thought he had forgotten everything, but the bard was a very good teacher, and after a few moments he found himself relaxing into the dance, his body following patterns now familiar, reading Kathil's own steps, the two of them feeding into each other. She was wearing perfume, something floral, and it was almost enough to make him feel a bit weak-kneed.

The song came to a close, and she squeezed his hands tightly for a moment before she stepped back. There was a warm hand on his shoulder. Cullen turned to see Zevran, his gold mask glittering. "May I?"

He nodded and stepped back, letting the elf take his place.

Zevran and Kathil were a study together, the elf as the blazing heart of Summer, the mage as the depths of Winter. It was a beautiful contrast, he thought, green and gold against silver and white. And the way they moved together—

Kathil spun out and away from Zevran, her scarves flaring and revealing that there really was _very_ little beneath those scarves. Then she came back to have Zevran lift her up with strong hands on her waist, and they were looking into each other's eyes, the masks completely failing to hide what was between them.

He watched them, simply appreciating for the moment what he saw. Zevran's costume was made of shimmering green and gold, his shirt cut to hide the scars on his chest and back that Cullen had seen a few times, when they had camped on the road. And those _pants_.

He felt himself going a bit red beneath his mask. The pants left little to the imagination, but Cullen found himself imagining anyway. He remembered Kathil asking him, that night in Highever, _tell me, have you ever thought about bedding a man?_

He'd stammered _yes_ before he could stop himself.

And now, watching Kathil and Zevran dance, he realized that he was thinking about bedding a _specific_ man. _Ah, Maker, I could never—_

Couldn't he?

_Behind a mask, we are allowed to be who we truly are._

It was just about then that he realized the music had ended and Kathil and Zevran were parting, and the elf was turning to the crowd, scanning for something. And a moment later, Zevran was in front of him, and there was that sly smile on his face. "And now, it is our turn to dance, no?"

And it was.

He was self-conscious in a way that he hadn't been before, but if anything, Zevran was a better dancer than Kathil, and he took Cullen's missteps in stride. The dance was one of the faster, more intricate partner dances, and they stepped towards each other and then away, Cullen catching the elf's hand in his as they neared each other and circled once more.

There were _possibilities_ in the way he and Zevran were dancing that Cullen hadn't allowed himself to think of before, and though he couldn't really see Zevran's eyes, he thought that the elf might be thinking the same thing.

When the dance was over, Leliana captured him for a turn, and then she set Cullen loose into the crowd where a bold young woman in a checkered mask took his arm and led him back towards the center. He was passed from hand to hand, from woman to man to someone whose gender he wasn't entirely sure of, and finally managed to wash up at the edge of the hall, quite willing to sit out a few songs.

The giggling young woman in the checkered mask who he'd danced with before came slipping up to him. "Are you _sure_ you won't come dance with me again?" she asked, a little pout in her voice. She raised herself up on her tiptoes and slung an arm around his neck. She smelled of some exotic spice, something that he could almost but not quite name.

"Maybe in a little while," he told her, but he didn't shake her off. Her parti-colored costume was made of a very light material, and he could feel the heat of her body through his clothes. "Have you seen a woman in white and silver anywhere? I seem to have lost track of her."

"Lady Winter?" The girl's tongue came out between her lips just a little. "I thought I saw her going out the side door a few minutes ago, by herself. Why?"

Kathil had left the hall alone? Odd. "I should go see if I can find her," he said.

"Only if you _promise_ to dance with me when you come back." The girl gave him a gap-toothed grin, and her arm tightened on him slightly. "Promise?"

"I promise," he said. The checkered girl gave him a kiss on the cheek and released him, melting away into the crowd where colors swirled around each other feverishly. Cullen waded through the crowd, heading toward that side door. She'd probably just gotten warm and stepped out for a breath of air. And perhaps, if he found himself alone with her, he could take the time to explore that fascinating costume she wore.

But what he found outside the hall stopped his heart, and his breath.


	6. Pivoine

**Six: ****Pivoine**

**

* * *

  
**

_Kathil:_

There were so many people here—almost as many as had attended Alistair's coronation, more than had attended his wedding, and _far_ more than she'd ever been used to encountering in one place as a child of the Tower. And so many of them were looking at her.

Many likely knew who she was, but she was content to pretend that for this one night she was one of this brightly feathered flock. Not a mage, not a hero, just a woman in a rather scandalous frock and a mask. She saw Cullen and Zevran dancing together, then Cullen and Leliana, then Zevran and a woman who might have been Arlessa Isolde.

Then she lost track of all of them as she was swept into the crowd.

She was caught up by a man in a midnight-black costume, his mask a snarling wolf. In contrast with his mask, the man's voice was pleasant, an orator's voice smooth as silk. She kept on asking him questions as they executed the slow formal dance he'd claimed, just to hear him talk.

"It had been lovely, but you have many other admirers," the wolf-masked man said. "And I will not be so selfish as to keep you from them." He took her hand in his, his palm against hers. "Until we meet again."

His hand tightened on hers, and Kathil yelped as something—one of his rings, it felt like—bit into her skin. She jerked her hand back, seeing a ruby drop of blood forming near her middle finger. Putting her hand to her mouth, she tasted copper. The wolf-masked man was gone.

The scratch was minor and she would have forgotten all about it, except for the fact that scarce a quarter of an hour later, she began to feel unwell.

It started out as a feeling of heat and a little dizziness, her vision sparkling a little around the edges. Cold swept over her, prickling the back of her neck. She needed to sit down—but there were so many people in the hall, and for the moment she was on her own, unable to see Zevran or Cullen or Leliana or even Alistair, who might have done. She wished Lorn were here. The warhound had helped her to safety when she was hurt or ill more times than she could count.

But she was close to the side door of the hall, and she made her way out of it and into the far quieter hall beyond. There was a crowd close to the door, but as she retreated a bit farther towards the double doors that led into the courtyard, she found a padded bench without occupants.

She dropped down onto the bench, her legs giving out, and tipped herself over so she was lying down. The world was spinning just a little. Something was wrong.

_The ring. Poisoned._

Her hand was throbbing, and she shivered. She would think of what to do in a moment.

In just a moment…

The next thing she knew, Cullen was there, propping her against him. She tried to tell him she was fine, she just needed to wait a little, but the words weren't coming out properly and she didn't understand what he was asking her. She held up her injured hand. "A wolf bit me," she said, but the words were distant and she wasn't sure if he could hear her. "A wolf."

*****

_Alistair:_

There were flashes and flutters of white out of the corner of his eye.

It seemed like everywhere he turned, whether it was to offer an arm to Rima or a smile to a masked noble, there was Kathil just at the corner of his vision. It was starting to drive him just a little mad, especially the way she kept on fading away when he turned towards her. _You'd think someone dressed like she is wouldn't be so difficult to pick out in a crowd_, he grumbled silently.

Then she was in front of him, beckoning. The noise in the hall was unrelenting, between everyone talking and the music playing, and she must be wanting a quiet word with him. There was something strange about the way she was moving--was she limping? Alistair followed her through the crowd as people stepped aside to let them pass.

She was heading towards a corner of the hall, still in full view. He met her there, and she turned around and held out her hands, obviously wanting him to take them. Puzzled, but willing to bet there was something going on here that he didn't yet understand, he put his gloved hands in her bare ones.

Her bare hands.

Her _unscarred,_ bare hands.

Alistair yanked his own hands back, realizing that this woman, though costumed exactly as Kathil had been and nearly the same height and weight, was not the Grey Warden he had known for five years. But she had a grip on him that refused easy loosening, and she was folding something into his palm and closing his fingers around it. He felt a small crunch as he crushed whatever it was in his glove—

And the woman was releasing him—

And Rima was there, and there were shouts rising, and there was a golden blur as Zevran dove between Alistair and his wife and tackled the woman in white.

*****

_Zevran:_

Leliana brushed by him.

As she did, he felt something press into his hand. He glanced down, curious, and saw that he held in his hand a coin. It was not money, however.

He had only seen a few of these in his time. It was a thin coin with a coppery sheen to it and the prickly feel of lyrium, and stamped into both sides was a design that looked like an elaborately carved flower surrounded by deeply toothed leaves. A peony, he knew.

It was a token of a group that most believed was more legend than reality. He knew better, and had encountered them personally once or twice. The sundowners were a loose confederacy of those who specialized in confidence games; more than mere thieves, they were artists of the darkest part of mortal hearts.

That _Leliana_ had one of these…

But was it hers, or had she taken it off of someone else?

He was altogether too willing to believe that Leliana was up to some game, but what she wanted him to do about it was a mystery. She'd vanished again, and for that matter he could not see Cullen or Kathil.

Ah, there. He spotted a flutter of shining white and turned to see his Grey Warden, Alistair on her heels, heading towards a back corner of the hall. He was an expert at reading crowds, and he could see the disturbance the mage and the King made as well as another, smaller one--Rima heading towards them, a woman with a checkered mask and a dress that seemed to be made of parti-colored spiderwebs beside her.

Zevran blinked. Looked again.

That was _not_ his Grey Warden in that costume.

He was willing to stake his life on it. And, more importantly, willing to stake Kathil's. That costume had been made for her, and that someone owned a replica could only mean mischief. He was in motion now, saw the woman in white fold Alistair's hand around something, saw Rima nearly running towards them, her beautiful face twisted in anger. The woman in white backed away, intending to slip off into the crowd while Rima confronted what she undoubtedly had been told was a wayward husband—

Zevran slid through the crowd (_like an eel, _he heard Luisa's voice in his memory, _you must slip through the smallest of gaps_), dodging and twisting out of the way of costumed dancers who were only now beginning to realize something was wrong.

He had a brace of small, wicked knives strapped beneath his shirt. Short blades were just as deadly as long ones. One simply had to place them with more care. Those little knives under his shirt were single-edged, meant to be used with a thumb along the blunt side for greater leverage to make up for a lack of handle and heft, and meant to slash flesh rather than stab.

One of those blades was in his hand and he was closing, flying between Rima and Alistair and stretching his body into a tackle.

And for that moment, an eternity suspended, he entertained a doubt.

_If I am wrong..._

Doubt was poison, in the moment of death.

But the moment he touched her, he knew he was not wrong. This woman was no mage, and no warrior, and as they went flying into the crowd he brought one hand up and sank the short blade into her neck, slicing open the great vein and artery on the left side. Blood flying, they hit the floor of the hall with a cracking thud, and he did not think it mattered that the woman was bleeding out. That crack had heralded her skull breaking, and when he let go of her the woman's body curled up in a posture he had seen a number of times before. It spoke of swiftly approaching death.

Whether it was the bleeding or the cracked skull or both, he would never know, but a moment after he shoved himself up and away from the woman, her blood staining his face and shirt, she made a rattling noise and stopped breathing.

"What have you _done_?"

Zevran turned towards the voice.

Rima stood aghast, one of her hands groping towards Alistair, staring at the dead woman. Zevran frowned. She had folded something into Alistair's glove, Zevran could see where the glove was wet, and Rima's hands were bare. He was moving again, this time grabbing Alistair's arm and wrenching it away from Rima. Alistair snarled a protest, but before he could do more than that Zevran had stripped the glove from his hand and dropped it on the floor, then released Alistair's arm and stepped away. "I have saved your life, Princess Consort. You are welcome."

He did not feel like following that last with a charming smile just now.

"But—Kathil—"

"Not her," Zevran said. "Burn that glove away from where anyone will breathe the smoke. It is poisoned." He stooped and gently loosened the mask from the would-be assassin's face and pulled it away. The white scarves were drinking in her spilled blood, taking on the color of death.

The dead woman was not his Grey Warden. It was, however, a woman who looked enough like her to be her sister. This one was younger than the mage by a few years, and life had not used her nearly as hard. He dropped the mask on her chest and stood. "And if you will excuse me, I have a Grey Warden to locate."

_And a bard._

Alistair stepped forward, shaking his head. "Zevran—"

"I will explain later, Alistair." He glanced at Rima, and was unsurprised to see that the woman in the checkered mask who had accompanied her was gone. _Likely halfway to the docks by now._ "It is not a subject fit for discussion in public, yes? And Kathil may be in trouble." He turned on his heel and walked away.

It was only then that he heard the rising panic of the crowd, the little screams of women as the news spread, and all at once the hall erupted into pandemonium. Alistair could not have followed him even if he'd tried; Zevran was very good at negotiating even panic-stricken crowds.

Now to find his Grey Warden, and with luck prove the rest of his fears false.

*****

_Cullen:_

Kathil was muttering about wolves. Still.

Cullen had come into the hallway and emerged from the crowd to see Kathil crumpled on a bench, her scarves wilting around her. He'd caught the arm of a servant and sent him running to the chapel, to see if the Sister on duty had any knowledge of the healing arts. When he pulled off Kathil's mask, he saw that her skin was far paler than normal. Her pulse was strong but slightly irregular, her breathing rapid, and every time he tried to sit her up she nearly fainted.

He had _no_ idea what was wrong with her.

Something had happened in the great hall. He could hear a rising babble, and the crowd around the door abruptly doubled and then tripled in size as people exited the hall, those at the edge of the crowd nearly running.

Cullen did not have much experience with out of control crowds, but he _did_ have battle experience, and the crowd now pouring down the hallway had the potential to be very dangerous despite itself. There was limited space in here, and his instincts were screaming at him that he had best get while the getting was still good.

"Sorry about this," he said as he scooped Kathil up and started running.

She was heavier than he'd expected. At least she wasn't struggling, instead fisting one hand in his shirt and holding on for dear life. He was out into the courtyard ahead of the crowd, taking the stairs down two at a time, and when he reached the bottom he paused and looked around.

A familiar figure waved to him from a doorway across the courtyard, torchlight reflecting on the scandalous amount of skin that her dress showed. _Leliana. Thank the Maker._ He hurried towards her, and she led him through an arched doorway into what he recognized as a guard barracks. Bunks lined the walls, stretching away into the dim. "Lay her down here," the bard said, indicating one of the bunks. She had a bag with her that she'd picked up somewhere, and was rummaging through it.

He laid the mage down on the bed, and her head lolled to the side as she went briefly limp. Cullen moved aside as Leliana took his place, dropping to one knee next to the bunk. "You _would_ be sensitive to it, dearest," she muttered as she laid a hand on Kathil's neck. "Cullen. Prop her head up." There was a flask in her hand. "I need to get a bit of this into her."

Cullen came around the bunk, sliding his hands under Kathil's hair. The metal ornaments braided into it dug into his hands. "What's wrong with her?"

"Poisoned. Concentrated foxglove, to be exact. Swallow a little, dearest. That's it, yes? A little more. Good. You can put her head back down, Cullen." The bard had her hand at the mage's neck again. After a moment, she nodded. "The salts in the tonic will strengthen her heartbeat until the foxglove wears off. In another hour, she will be right as rain."

A terrible suspicion was crossing Cullen's mind. "How did you know? Poison, maybe, but how did you know it was foxglove?"

"Because, unless I am _terribly_ mistaken, our Chantry mouse picked out the poison and told her accomplice what dose to give her." Zevran was leaning on the doorframe, his arms crossed. There was venom in his voice. "Enough to make her ill enough to leave the hall but not enough to kill her."

Leliana stood. Her lush lips pressed together hard, and she had a wary look in her blue eyes. "She lives. And so do both Alistair and Rima, yes?"

"They do." The elf's gaze was still flat, and Cullen found himself wishing he had a blade to hand, though right now he didn't know exactly who he wanted to defend.

"Then all went as I planned," the bard said. She tilted her head. "May I have my token back, Zevran?"

"Perhaps in a bit, my dove." There was still that bladed tone in Zevran's voice. "I believe you have some explaining to do."

Leliana quirked one corner of her mouth. "Come in and close the door, then." After a moment, the elf did so. Cullen heard Kathil move, and turned to her as she sat up, a confused look on her face. He went to sit down next to her, putting an arm around her and feeling her lean into him.

Leliana sat down on the bunk across from them, took a breath, and began to speak.

"I am a sundowner…"

*****

_Leliana:_

The story was remarkably easy to tell. _Strange, after all this time of keeping it to myself._ Meeting Marjolaine, realizing that the other woman was not only an accomplished bard but one of the fabled _soleils vers le bas_, the bards who worked almost exclusively in confidence games. Learning the art of using humanity's most base emotions and desires against them.

Chasing down Marjolaine after the Blight was broken, killing her, and taking her name from her. "Pivoine," she said. "She was Pivoine, and now I am. The sundowners have some local people, and I am known to one or two. I was contacted a number of weeks ago about a _jeu de blaireau_."

"A what?" Kathil asked. The color was beginning to return to the mage's face. She turned on the bunk so her back was against Cullen, one leg dangling off the bed and the other tucked beneath her.

Leliana spread her hands. At this moment, Kathil was in no shape to fight and Cullen was unarmed, but she still worried about Zevran, who was taking this evening's game much more badly than she'd expected. _Perhaps I have misjudged him. _"A badger game," she translated. "Usually, one manipulates a man into a compromising position with a woman. They are interrupted by a man pretending to be her angry husband, yes? The husband threatens to expose the mark to his family and his peers. And then the mark pays for reparations and for silence. Only in this case—"

"The jealous wife was _quite_ real," Zevran broke in.

"Indeed she is. It was a _jeu_ commissioned with Alistair as the mark and Rima as the payment, so to speak." Leliana took a breath, and stood straighter. "Kathil is removed from the hall. A woman similar in looks to her and costumed identically goes in and beckons Alistair to follow her. A play on trust and desire. Then someone whispers into Rima's ear—see the King with the Grey Warden? Whatever could they be talking about?"

"And Rima reacts predictably," Zevran said softly. "Then there was a second act of the _jeu_."

"Simple enough." Leliana smiled a bit at the elf, who scowled. It did not look very good on him. "The accomplice with Alistair has a very fragile glass vial filled with a contact poison—much deadlier than the one given to Kathil. She breaks it in Alistair's glove. And when the King goes to comfort the Princess Consort, to tell her it was all innocent, he lays his glove on her skin without thinking. The oil goes onto her skin, the glass shards scratch her and let her absorb the poison much more quickly. And the Princess Consort dies, and Alistair blames himself. The nobles, who do not know Kathil well, blame our Grey Warden for starting it. Only it did not quite work out that way, did it?"

There was a long moment of silence, heartbeats stretching out, and then Zevran shook his head. "I killed the false Grey Warden."

"As I knew you would, Zevran." She smiled at him again. "If there is nothing else we can rely upon you for, it is that you always know exactly who needs to die to resolve a situation. I could not stop the _jeu_, it was already in motion by the time I joined. But I could make sure that it did not end as commissioned. It only ever takes one uncontrolled factor to spoil a game, and you were that factor today. None of the players will suspect that I was the one to alert you."

He looked not in the least impressed.

Kathil spoke, breaking the silence. "So let me get this straight, Lei. You had the seamstress make a copy of my costume and mask. You told someone exactly how to poison me, and with what. You likely gave someone all _sorts_ of information about me, about Alistair—"

"It had to be convincing, dearest," Leliana said gently. "_I_ had to be convincing. Because what I have not told you yet is who commissioned the _jeu_."

"Who?"

"The mist, it is said." She dug into her bag and brought out a pair of coins. Handing them both to Kathil, she said, "The Grey Wardens. Only that is not _quite_ the truth, yes? This did come through one of the Grey Wardens—the one called Anthoine. He was merely playing messenger boy for an old friend. Anthoine was not born in Orlais. He was born in Tevinter, and it is there he received his education."

And _that_ had been information hard-won. As had the name of the true originator of the _jeu_. "Those coins are Orelesian," she continued. "But if you look carefully, the edges are clipped. Worthless, in Orlais."

Zevran was looking thoughtful. "Everything that goes into Tevinter comes out less than it was," he said. "People, caravans, coins. So. Do you have a name for us?"

"I have a name," she said. "But it is not for you. There are those who have an interest in disrupting the Fereldan government, yes? Rima dies, Kathil is disgraced in the eyes of the banns and the arls. Alistair is left to deal with worsening internal conflict, conflict that Rima has been working so hard to repair. And too many people still suspect that the Grey Wardens are up to no good." She shook her head. "All think the Tevinters are too busy fighting the qunari to bother with anything else, but the truth is that their gaze has been turning south. Ferelden was a conquered nation for a very long time, yes? Now it begins to become more of a power."

Kathil was rubbing her temples. "It appears as though I am playing in politics despite myself."

"Play the game, or be used as a pawn, Kathil." She gave her friend a small smile. "It is always that way. But, no. No name. It does not matter, anyway. By the time word reaches Tevinter that the _jeu_ has failed, we will be gone from Denerim. They will not try this gambit again."

Zevran shifted, then looked at Cullen. "Look after Kathil," he said, and then turned and walked away. He was gone before any of them could make a move to protest.

Leliana looked at Kathil, confused. The mage had her eyes closed, a look of pain crossing her face. "I did not expect him to react in this way," Leliana said. "He does understand these games."

"Did he ever tell you of his last contract before he came to Denerim the first time, Lei?" Kathil asked. Leliana shook her head mutely. "It's not my tale to tell, then. I should go after him." In the dim of the barracks, her eyes were depthless black.

She went to the bunk where the mage was sitting, and knelt next to her on the blanket. Behind Kathil, Cullen looked worried. "I am sorry, dearest," Leliana said. "I would never put you in danger if it was not necessary, and warning you would have vastly increased the peril to both of us." She reached out to tuck an escaped lock of pale hair behind Kathil's ear. "You know what I am. You have known for a long time."

Kathil closed her eyes again, tilting her head into Leliana's hand. "I have. It does not make it easier to know that we are all so easily manipulated, though."

"It is the way of the human heart, I fear." She slipped her hand down to Kathil's jaw, laying her palm along the mage's cheek. "Even the best among us has shadows, and every shadow has a use. But I think this will be a useful lesson for Alistair and Rima, and I do not think the harm will last. Forgive me, dearest?" She leaned forward to kiss the mage's forehead.

"If you have broken Zevran, I am going to be _very_ angry with you," Kathil murmured. "Maybe, Lei. You play wicked games, but your heart is good. I should have known you were up to something, but I've been distracted."

"Such a handsome distraction, too." She took Kathil's face in both hands, and kissed the pointed tip of her nose. The scar on Kathil's face deepened as the mage smiled. "If you are feeling well enough to walk, go after your assassin. I will go see if there is some damage control to be done. Do not go far, Cullen, I may need a Grey Warden."

"What about the rest?" Cullen blurted, frowning. "Your—accomplices?"

Leliana released Kathil and shrugged. "It is _such_ a pity that the docks are so dangerous. There are a few women down there who have been paid in clipped Orelesian coins to make sure that none of the crew of the _jeu_ ever reach their boats." She rose from the bunk and smiled at the two Grey Wardens. "And from that barking, I think there is someone looking for you, Kathil."

"Oh, Maker, _Lorn_." The door of the barracks burst open, revealing the Mabari on the other side of it. Lorn barreled in, nails scrabbling for purchase on the stone floor, and leaped onto the bunk with Kathil and Cullen.

The warhound was licking Kathil's face, declaring that there had been trouble and he had not been able to find her and he had been worried and where had she _been_? The Mabari was clearly most wroth with his human, and Leliana took advantage of Kathil's attention turning away from her to slip out of the barracks.

She would find her way back into the palace proper, and from there—well, perhaps Alistair did need to hear a tale of tonight's _jeu_. A heavily edited one. Kathil would be able to find and settle Zevran. She did not know _exactly_ what his problem was, but she thought she might be able to guess at the outline of it.

She wished her friend luck with him.

There werestill knots and crowds of frightened nobles in the courtyard, and Leliana slipped between them and into the shadow-hung palace.

*****

_Kathil:_

She didn't remember there being quite this many stairs up to the wall walk. Lorn was at her side, and he paused as she stopped to rest, looking at her quizzically. See? This was what happened when he allowed her out of his sight. She got _slow._

"I'm fine, Lorn," she said. She straightened and continued climbing, keeping one hand on the wall next to the stairs.

Lorn looked doubtful. She didn't _smell_ fine. She smelled like she needed to be lying down in a pile of pillows with her elf and her dust-knight fussing over her, not climbing up to the walls of the palace.

"And who made you my nursemaid, hound?" Lorn nudged her hip, and she chuckled. "I just have to talk to Zevran, if he's up here. Then we'll be off to bed. I promise."

She had _better_, said a single tail-wag.

When they reached the top of the wall, she paced off the length of the narrow walk. At one end, near the guard tower, a figure sat on the wall with its legs dangling over the edge. In the wavering light of the lanterns hung at intervals on the walls, she could see that the figure had a very familiar outline indeed.

She went to lean on the wall next to him, looking out over Denerim. She could see pools of light in the darkness—lanterns, torches, an illuminated window. "She does mean well," Kathil said softly. Behind her, she heard Lorn lie down, and knew that he would warn them if anyone approached. "You've never told her about Rinna."

"I did not believe I had to." Zevran did not look down at her, keeping his gaze focused out over Denerim. "I thought I had learned my lesson. Perhaps not."

"Which lesson?"

Now he did glance at her, though she could not read the expression on his face. "I am still capable of destroying what I…hold in great esteem. The imposter was very good. For a moment, I wondered if it was you after all, and still I killed her."

She shrugged. "It wasn't me."

"And if it had been?"

Kathil straightened, and took his wrist in her hand. He raised an eyebrow but did not pull away. "I could at this moment send a bolt of lightning through you and stop your heart. Or I could freeze you in place and push you off the wall. It's a long way down. And I know you have at least a pair of knives under your shirt. Even without blades, you could probably kill me. Break my neck, strangle me, throw me off the wall. But we don't, you know. We have every chance to kill each other, every means, and we do not. Do you mind telling me what this is actually about? You're as bad as Cullen, sometimes."

The elf grimaced. "A fair comparison, if not flattering, my Grey Warden. One of my fellow Crows, a very wise woman named Ville, once told me that love only ever ended one way. With a dead body. It is something I forgot only once."

She turned her hand so that her palm was against his. "Rinna."

"Indeed." No lightning-quick smiles now, little humor in his voice. She ached for him; this man was not made for unhappiness. "I find myself wondering if history will repeat itself. And when."

She tightened her hand on his, and then let go. "Every breath is a choice. Sometimes, you have to choose to let the past be gone. Right now,_ I_ am choosing to go to bed. I've just gotten done being poisoned, having my best friend try to explain to me why it was _her_ in charge of a confidence game that might have gotten Rima killed, and you're worrying about whether or not admitting that you're in love with me is going to doom you to killing me." She gave him a half-smile. "Come to bed when you're finished brooding, Zev."

"Ah, she is so very cruel to me," he said, and she could see the smile returning to his face. "When you put it that way, my Grey Warden, it does sound somewhat silly, no?" He swung his legs over the wall and stood, holding a hand out to her.

She took his hand, then pulled him close. "Only a bit. I am not Rinna, Zev. You tried to kill me once, and it didn't stick."

"True, that is." He put an arm around her. "I am well chastened, yes? Off to bed with us."

She didn't move. The lamplight was playing over his tanned features, handsome in that sharp way that elves often were, his hair falling forward to nearly hide his tattoos. They were alone on the wall except for Lorn, the city stretched sleeping below them, and the moment pressed on her.

"I love you," she said, keeping her voice soft. "Just in case you were wondering." And before he could reply, before he could say anything (because he was looking oddly surprised at her statement, and she wondered if he really had not known), she kissed him.

It took them a long time to part, and when they did it was in silence. Wordlessly, Kathil began to move towards the stairs, keeping her arm around Zevran. Lorn fell in behind them, and together they went down the stairs, towards their room.

Later, in the dark, Kathil was on the edge of sleep, with Zevran curled around her. "I, as well," he murmured into her ear, in a voice so low she almost could not hear him.

She slipped under the surface of sleep, and warmth followed her down.


	7. In Praise of Difficult Women

**Seven: In Praise of Difficult Women **

**

* * *

  
**

_Alistair:_

Somehow, he doubted that this was going to end well.

It was the morning after the masque, and Rima had asked that—well, demanded, but he'd intercepted the runner she'd sent and amended her message—the two Grey Wardens and their "entourage" attend her. Now.

The runner had come back to the bower with the message that the Grey Wardens would meet with her that afternoon. This had gone over almost as well as, say, a darkspawn invasion. Not that Rima had lost her temper. She had simply sent another message, and Alistair hadn't managed to deflect that one.

The messenger had come back pale and visibly shaken. "The Grey Warden Kathil is…unwell," the poor man said, almost stuttering. "Her bodyguard, the elf…he pinned me to the wall. With _daggers_." He raised his arm, and Alistair could see the holes in the man's sleeves.

Alistair could imagine what exactly Zevran had said when he'd sent the runner away. Rima's eyes were narrow, and her fingers were curled into the arms of her chair, denting the velvet-covered padding. "You'd best let them be," he said. "Zevran will probably kill the next one. Leliana said that Kathil was poisoned, remember? She's probably not in any shape to drag herself up here this morning."

Rima took a sharp breath. "They have been nothing but trouble, Alistair. I know they are your friends, but death follows them. Denerim will be talking about the masque for years to come, and it _won't_ be because anyone had a good time. There are negotiations that have stalled because one side or the other wants to court Kathil's support. Others have fallen apart entirely. If she stays much longer, things are going to deteriorate even more than they already have."

He fought not to grit his teeth. "And whose fault is that? You've placed her publically in opposition to you."

"It was _Kathil_ who had that little outburst." Her mouth firmed. "Not I."

"No, you just _arranged_ for Isolde to ambush her." He took a breath and let it out. Rima hadn't been in Redcliffe, he reminded himself. She still had only the vaguest idea of what lengths they had gone to in order to save Connor and Isolde's life.

"Only to give her an opportunity to show her true colors." His wife sat back in her chair, and now there was a small smile playing at the corners of her mouth. She was always like this, quicksilver flowing away from any attempt to categorize her. It was one of the things he loved best about her. "Alistair, she is dangerous. You have admitted as much. Remember?"

"As I recall, I also said that _I_ was dangerous," he pointed out. "Grey Wardens are dangerous sorts. We have to be. Seriously, Rima, I know you don't like her. But it would be better to work with her rather than against her. She makes a bad enemy. So do you, for that matter."

Well, at least Rima appeared to be thinking about it. This was as far as he'd gotten in a discussion with her about Kathil since he'd gotten back from Waking Sea. "I need to get everything back on track as quickly as I can. The summer season has only a month left to go." She drummed her fingers on the chair's arm. "And then this…whatever it was, at the masque. We can't afford internal strife. We have enough trouble coming from outside Ferelden—if what that bard says is to be trusted."

"A suggestion, love?" Rima turned to him, and her fingers paused for a moment. "Kathil will be gone by the end of the summer, and wherever she goes, she's likely to end up somewhere that she can do either great harm or great good for us. Even if you two dislike each other, at least you could respect each other."

"Perhaps, perhaps. If I gave her a problem that needed to be solved…" There went those drumming fingers again. "I have little choice at this point, it seems." She rose from her chair, and came to Alistair's.

They were alone in the bower but for a few guards. Rima leaned over, tracing one hand along Alistair's jaw. "You truly do not love her any more, do you?" she said, and it was question and statement both.

"She is my friend," he said. "Anything else between us is done." He grinned and waggled his eyebrows at his wife. "Besides. You're prettier."

"Appealing to my vanity will get you nowhere, dear." But she was smiling now, and he pulled her into his lap for a kiss. She was laughing, and for the first time in a while she was the girl he had married, the one who had shoved her way into his heart long before he'd thought he'd be ready to love anyone again.

He'd been prepared to like her and to do his duty by her. But he hadn't been prepared for how lost Kathil's abrupt departure had left him, or the fact that despite being noble and educated in statecraft, Rima too was lost in the winding halls of the palace. They'd started out needing each other—he leaned on her knowledge, she clung to him as the one person in the palace who was slightly less strange than everything else around her. Then, as they started to know each other better, he started to appreciate her for the person she was, and what had started out as awkward had become much less so.

It had taken him almost six months to become friends with his wife. Another year to begin to love her. A time after that before he forgave himself for letting duty come between him and Kathil, and it had taken them traveling together again to stop feeling like being a ruler had destroyed the best part of his life.

And it had taken becoming a father to understand that the grass on this side of the fence was the most _amazing_ shade of green.

He kissed Rima again. "I should be off, if we're not meeting with the Grey Wardens this morning. I just wanted to make sure that a fight wasn't about to break out."

Rima snorted gently. "Aren't men supposed to like watching women fight?"

"Not when they're a Grey Warden and my wife, I don't." He smiled. "And—ah. I think we may have a visitor after all." If that commotion out in the hall was anything to go by—

Rima was off his lap a heartbeat later, brushing her skirt back into place. Her face smoothed into her familiar Princess Consort mask, and Alistair stood and faced the door. "She _called_ for me," he could hear a testy voice on the other side of the door say. "Seriously. Ask her."

The door opened, and a guard cautiously stuck his head through. "You wanted to see the Grey Wardens, your Majesty? And their…entourage?"

"They _are_ something of a traveling circus," Alistair muttered.

Rima ignored him. "Send them in," she said. "And in the Maker's name, _someone_ tell the kitchens to send up something to refresh ourselves with." The guard nodded and his head vanished, to be replaced a moment later by the door swinging wide and revealing familiar figures on the other side. "Come in, sit down," Rima said. "I believe we have much to talk about."

Kathil stepped into the room, and Alistair could see something familiar on her face, the silent, exhausted _what now?_ that he'd seen every time they had encountered yet another obstacle between them and the Archdemon. And what had always followed that look was one of cold stubbornness…and there it was, her jaw firming and her shoulders straightening.

This wasn't going to end well at _all_.

*****

_Kathil:_

The bower had been rearranged, with two chairs on Rima's low dais and others arranged in a semicircle below. She settled into the one in the center. Her muscles protested; this morning, she felt about twice her age.

It was better than it had been about an hour ago, when she'd felt about ten times her age and had hidden her head under the blanket, muttering _just kill me now_. Then Zevran had turned away two people at the door (the second one a bit violently), and hadn't told her who it had been until _after_ she'd threatened to do something quite awful to his manhood with a knife.

Two cups of willowbark tea later, she was feeling like she might have a shot at being a person sometime today. Seeing what it was that Rima wanted was a priority, and she'd chivvied Zevran into clothing and gone to rouse Cullen. Leliana, bless her, had been waiting out in the hall when they emerged, looking unconscionably _perky_ despite the fact that she had been up later than the rest of them.

"The trick is not to sleep at all," Leliana had told her when Kathil asked. "Sleeping only a few hours fogs the mind."

And now she was sitting in Rima's bower, and Alistair looked like he expected something to explode at any moment. For that matter, so did Zevran as he settled beside Kathil. Cullen just looked worried.

Leliana crossed her ankles and folded her hands, and Kathil suspected that she might be worried as well, though it was always hard to tell with her. Lorn settled down between Kathil and Zevran's chairs, his ears swiveling. Rima had just dismissed all of the guards in the room, and the door was just now closing.

"I apologize for not arriving sooner," she said. "The poison that was used on me last night evidently gives its victims a very nasty hangover the next morning, if they survive. You wanted to speak to me, Rima?"

"I did," Rima said. "I wish to discuss alliance, Grey Warden."

Kathil blinked. Alistair looked thunderstruck; evidently, he'd been expecting this about as much as she had. "Ah…in what, may I ask?"

Rima's eyes were the electric azure of the summer sky, and right now they told Kathil nothing at all. "We have never gotten along, Kathil, and we are unlikely to ever be friends. But I believe we have more interests in common than we have opposing. Your…bodyguard saved my life last night."

_Only because our presence here was what put you in danger._ Kathil quashed the thought. "I am glad he did, your Majesty. Ferelden needs you. Rima, if this is about all of the banns who keep coming to me and asking me my opinion on things that I honestly don't care about, I will be _more_ than happy to refer them to you. I keep trying to tell them that, and they keep coming after me."

Ah, and that had struck a chord. "Bring them to me, Grey Warden, when they ask. That is not quite what I had in mind, however." Rima paused, and she glanced at Alistair. Her hands were still in her lap. "This does not go beyond this room, yes?" The Princess Consort glanced around, and all of them nodded. "I am officially my father's oldest child. I have two younger brothers. Officially. Unofficially…my oldest brother Niall was taken to the Circle when he was eight years old. On his deathbed, my father told me that he had two older brothers who were taken by the Templars before he was old enough to remember. The mage talent appears to run strongly in the sons of my family."

_Maker's Breath. Niall._ "You're worried about Duncan."

Rima nodded shallowly. "All I ask is that if you are in a position to do something about it if he shows the taint, that you do. We need an heir, Grey Warden. And I need to know that my son is safe, and whole."

Kathil closed her eyes briefly, taking a breath. "You have to know that there's not much I can do, Rima. I'm sorry, but it's the truth. I could not keep Connor from the Tower. I can't keep Duncan from it either, if it's his destiny to go there. Not as a Circle mage, not as Warden-General."

The Princess Consort raised one delicately arched, golden eyebrow. "Can you not, Kathil? You are a Grey Warden, and thus not confined to the Tower. You are a Circle mage, and qualified to teach its arts—did I not hear you telling Isolde that her Connor was to be your apprentice? And you have a man with Templar powers sworn to you. I would say that you are likely the only person who might be qualified to teach a prince how to use the power he is heir to, if the worst is true."

_Oh, no. No, no, _no_._ "The Circle is a law unto itself," she said quietly. "I defy that law at my peril. And raising mages outside of the Tower is…" She stopped, and frowned. "Apostates have rejected Circle teachings, not merely fled the confines of the Tower. It is not done, no, but I might be able to convince the Circle and the Chantry that it is in the country's best interest that Duncan not be Tower-educated." Irving would have her hide. Several times _over_. Not to mention Greagoir.

Rima looked pleased. "It seems such a shame that mages are taken from their families," she said. "Wouldn't it be best, if we can, to keep him with us?"

Kathil shot a grim look at Alistair. _If you weren't King, I would kill you. I might kill you anyway. Or maybe just hurt you some._ It was probably useless to be angry at Alistair for that one last betrayal of her secrets, but she wasted the energy anyway. It wasn't reasonable to expect him to keep things from Rima, but for a moment she could _wish_. "I will warn you that this might be ill-considered, and it _will_ set the Chantry against the crown." She shook her head. "We might think we could keep it a secret, Rima, but we won't be able to. And every noble family who hears about it and has a mage child will bring that child here—" She broke off. _I will accidentally found another Tower._

Rima was nodding. "Do you see? A group of mages who have their memories intact, who still have their families. They would not have to lose their families and their homes, or their titles and lands."

"No." Kathil shuddered. "Rima…what the Tower does is horrible. But it is also _necessary_. You don't know just how necessary. If absolutely nothing else, it places us all on equal footing. Noble, tradesman, human, elf—all mages are equal. That is one thing I do _not_ want to change. It is miserable enough to be one of us _without_ dragging the baggage of our birth behind us. I will not found another Tower, and I _especially_ will not found one that is under the direct control of the crown. Because that is what would happen, and were I the type of person to wager, I would say you know that."

There was just the smallest flash of triumph in the Princess Consort's eyes. "But you could take Duncan as an apprentice. Especially if you become Warden-General, Kathil, you will need our good will."

_You are probably a terror when you're negotiating with tradesmen,_ Kathil thought. _Try for the unacceptable and what was previously refused suddenly becomes a bargain._ "Fine. But there are terms. One, he won't be studying here in the palace. You will be free to visit, wherever we settle, but he will not be living here. Two, the study of magic is dangerous, and I want no ill will if the worst happens." Rima hesitated, and then nodded. "Three. If he survives, and he is ready, I will take him to the Tower for a time when he is of age. And four, _absolutely_ no more apprentices, noble or otherwise, unless they're your children. Agreed?"

"Agreed and done, Grey Warden," Rima said. She smiled, just a little. "I hope it does not become necessary, Kathil. I would like nothing more than for Duncan to grow up a _mere_ human."

Kathil let the insult roll off of her. She'd heard so much worse, in her time. She'd been very neatly outmaneuvered, but what she was not going to say right now was that it was something she would have done for Alistair anyway, had it become necessary. Let Rima have her triumph. _No wonder she's been so nasty. I don't know if Alistair would have married her, had he known that the taint runs in her family. _

She was saved from having to reply to Rima's words by the arrival of tall flasks of small mead and honey cakes. The servants swept in with trays and glasses, and in what seemed like nearly an instant they were gone again, leaving the edibles behind. Lorn was giving her a hopeful look, and she broke one of her honey cakes in half and gave it to him.

The warhound set his head on her knee, trying different ear and eyebrow positions to see if any of them would result in Kathil deciding that she'd had enough cake and needed to do something with the leftovers. Unfortunately for Lorn, she liked honey cakes.

Now the conversation turned to far safer subjects, and Kathil breathed a sigh of relief and sank back into her chair a bit. She might survive this audience after all. Her head was pounding, but only distantly. A few minutes later, Leliana suggested that it was possibly time for Kathil to go back to bed. Rima agreed, to Kathil's great relief.

All the way back to her room, though, she was thinking about the very _dangerous_ idea that Rima had tried to plant in her head. The Circle maintained its independence fiercely. Kathil had never paused to wonder why. Now she knew, and it was not simply that it was a kindness to everyone. It was because a mage with a family was a mage who could be _influenced_ by that family.

_We would be terrible weapons in the wrong hands. Maybe even in the right ones._

But nothing had exploded, and she'd gotten an answer for why the Princess Consort had taken such a violent dislike to her in the first place. By Andraste's little ankles, the woman was Niall's sister. With a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, Kathil realized that it was likely nobody had ever told her what had happened to her brother. _It was a heroic death, at least, as heroic a death as a mage ever dies._

He'd stood in the Raw Fade, clinging to sanity by only a thread, his body dying by inches for days in the Tower. She could have been him, she knew. Alone, stranded, the Fade wearing down her purpose and her mind until only fear and a sense of failure remained.

And with Niall as an example of the price of failure, she had been determined to succeed. Terrified, but determined.

She'd fought her way through the sloth demon's realm with everything she had in her…and when she had come out the other side, after the demon was dead and his domain collapsed back into the sparkling nothingness of the Fade, she was whole and as sane as she ever was.

Niall was dead.

Kathil didn't think Alistair remembered the name of the mage who had died to find the Litany. He had no reason to remember, after all. Just another dead mage in a Tower full of them. Rima would never have been told what had happened to her brother, that he had died in an attempt to save the Circle from Uldred.

She knew all of their names, those whose lives had been lost. Every last one, from Niall who had been her friend to the cook's daughter Elsa, whose existence she'd been entirely unaware of until she had quizzed Irving on who had died, after she'd gotten back to the Tower.

She snagged the book she was working her way through and climbed into bed, curling up on top of the blanket. "I have some errands in the market district," Zevran said, coming over to the bed. Lorn hopped up beside her and settled down.

"If you happen by the scribe's stall, pick up a few new quills for me? I'm running low." She flipped through the pages until she found the faded blue ribbon she used to mark her place.

He leaned over to kiss her. "Of course, my Grey Warden," he said, his voice warm. "Do not do anything dangerous while I am gone, yes? I hate to miss any excitement."

"Bed, book, warhound." She grinned at him. "What could go wrong?"

He gave her half a smile. "Once upon a time, little bird, I would have said nothing at all, but traveling with you has expanded my imagination significantly."

There was silence between them for a moment, and then she smiled. "Go, Zevran. If it makes you feel any better, tell Cullen you're going and have him check on me in a bit. This book is probably going to put me to sleep quickly."

He kissed her again and then he was gone, and she turned her attention to her book, petting Lorn's head absently. The woman who had written this book was discoursing on an ostensibly interesting subject—a catalogue of various plants she had come across on her travels and some information she'd talked the Dalish into giving her about them—but unfortunately, she was a very _boring_ writer.

It wasn't too long before she'd set her head down—_just for a moment_, she told herself—and found herself drifting off, lulled into sleep by the warmth of the air and the quiet of the room.

*****

_Cullen:_

He stood in one of the outer courtyards, watching Fiann charm her way through what seemed like half the population of the palace. He had been given an assignment today—take her out into the palace and have her meet as many different kinds of people as possible. So far, they had visited the armory, the bailey, the stables, and the library.

Right now, Fiann was working her way through a crowd of maids, going to each of them in turn and letting them pet her and exclaim over her. Her grey-blue eyes had turned a deep brown, and she had been gaining weight rapidly as she got closer to weaning. The pup rolled onto her back and wiggled appealingly for the woman who was kneeling down, murmuring, "Who's a cute dog, then? Who?"

Me, me, _me_, said those flailing feet.

He was supposed to take her out into the city tomorrow, and the Tranquil in charge of the pups had especially instructed him to take her both around the market district and into the Alienage. Yvrenne was getting to the point where she was starting to think about weaning her now-mobile and rapidly growing brood, and it was time to start teaching the pups their manners and introducing them to things they would need to deal with all of their lives.

Fiann rolled to her feet and trotted over to the next woman, sitting down in front of her and cocking her head, which earned her a coo and a good petting. Cullen looked up as someone else approached.

This person wasn't a maid, but his sturdy clothes and well-made shoes suggested that he was a runner. The road dust on him suggested that he had just arrived, as did the hat that was pulled down low over his face to shade his eyes. "Grey Warden Cullen?" the man asked, looking at him.

He still wasn't used to being able to be recognized on sight by strangers. Recognized as a Templar, that was what the armor was for. But he wore no Grey Warden emblems at the moment. It was a little eerie, to tell the truth. "That I am. What do you need?"

The runner handed him a thick packet wrapped in oilskin. "I was instructed to give this to either you or the Grey Warden Kathil. It's from the Tower." He looked down as Fiann reared up and put two enormous paws on his knee. The man's face softened, and in his thick beard his mouth smiled. "Your newest recruit, I see."

Fiann's nose was working, and there was a look of concentration on her face, furry brows knitted in thought. Dust…blood…big-hooved-thing?…_mage_! Her stubby tail wagged wildly.

"Very good, he came from the Tower, there are a lot of mages there." He gave the runner a small smile. "Best give her a scratch or she'll follow you until you pay your tribute."

The runner chuckled and reached down to give the pup a scratch behind the ears. "I had better be off. Good day, Grey Warden." He made his way through the crowd, and as he left Cullen saw that the man limped slightly. That was odd. He seemed…familiar, somehow.

If he was a regular messenger to the Tower, Cullen had probably seen the man before and just didn't remember his face. He forgot all about it as he crouched down and beckoned to Fiann. "Letters to deliver, pup." He needed to go check on Kathil anyway.

Fiann perked up and came to him, putting one large paw on his knee and swiping a lightning-quick tongue across his face. She wore a flimsy collar that trailed a light line; while Mabari didn't usually walk on lead like normal dogs, the line was a precaution against Fiann getting too distracted by a smell and running off to follow it. The line was only to make catching her easier. Once the imprinting process was complete, she would wear the collar but no lead.

He scratched her under her chin and stood. She was at his heels as he walked into the palace, though she did dart here and there, dropping her nose to the ground and scampering off. They managed to make it to the guest wing without serious incident, though there was a close call with one of the scribes who was carrying a large armful of scrolls and nearly tripped over Fiann as she ran up to greet him.

He knocked twice on Kathil's door and entered. As he opened the door, there was a _whuff_ from Lorn, followed by a surprised whine as Fiann ran into the room. Cullen saw Kathil sprawled on the bed, and from the way she raised her head and blinked he thought she'd been asleep.

Fiann immediately galumphed over to the bed, putting her paws up on the edge, her whole body wagging. Lightning-lady-mage! It was lightning -lady-mage whose smell her human carried! The pup whined, trying to scrabble her way up to the bed.

There was abruptly a massive head in her way. My human, said a low whuff. Also, my bed.

Fiann fell back and rolled to show her belly, licking the air. (As Cullen supposed was entirely prudent, considering that Lorn was ten times her size and he could bring down a deer by himself; a pup was no contest.) Lorn peered over the edge of the bed, his tail wagging slowly. "You've met Fiann before," Cullen said.

We just have to get some things straight, said the warhound's sidelong look.

Fiann wiggled. See what a good pup I am? See how harmless, how cute? She raised her head to check whether it was working, decided it was not, and promptly redoubled her wiggling into a near-frenzy.

"Andraste's ankles, Lorn, be _nice_. Cullen's her human, she doesn't want me." Kathil set her head back down on the blanket. There was an open book next to her, a faded blue ribbon lying across the pages in the afternoon sunlight coming in through the window.

"I actually just came by to see if you needed anything," Cullen said. "I have to take this one back to the kennels before her mother decides to come looking for her."

The mage rolled a bit and propped her head on her hand. "Company? After you return Fiann, of course."

Next to her, Lorn stirred and got to his feet, going into a deep stretch. He hopped down, to the accompaniment of a happy puppy-bark from Fiann. The dust-knight should stay here. Lorn had a tree to water. He had been in here with his human forever, and now that her dust-knight was here he could leave for a time. The warhound grabbed the line attached to Fiann's collar, and walked off with her in tow.

Bemused, Cullen stepped aside to let them pass. "Be good for Lorn," he told Fiann, who looked confused. "I'll check on you later to make sure you made it back all right."

The pup gave a happy bark and bounded to keep up with Lorn, who was stretching his legs. Soon enough, both of them were gone.

Cullen remembered the letters in his hand, and took a breath.

He had to wonder what the Tower wanted with her now....


	8. Fires Without Permission

**Eight: ****Fires Without Permission**

**

* * *

  
**

_Cullen:_

Cullen came to sit on the edge of the bed. "Ran into a messenger," he said, handing her the packet. "Letters from the Tower. For you."

Kathil looked down at the packet in her hand. The corner of her mouth twisted, and she started picking apart the knot that held the wrapping closed. "A reply from Irving, I think." She opened the cover and started riffling through the contents. "Circle seal, that's Irving being formal. And—hunh. One from Petra, one from Greagoir and what does _he_ want, and—ah! Two for you, Cullen." She held out two folded pieces of paper to him.

He took them, frowning. "Who—oh, this one's from Guaire. And this one—"

His heart gave a rather uncomfortable thump.

Kathil leaned over, peering. "Ah. You have a Greagoir letter, too." She slid one finger under the seal of the thickest of her letters, the one from Irving, then rolled up so she was sitting with crossed legs. Then she bent her head and started to read.

Cullen looked at the letters in his hand. He set aside Greagoir's letter and opened Guaire's, starting with the easiest first. Guaire was a good friend, one of the Templars he missed, about Cullen's own age. He probably just wanted to catch Cullen up on the Tower gossip.

Only—

The contents were not at all what he'd expected.

_Cullen,_

_I'm not sure how to say this, so I'm just going to say it. I've decided to leave the Templars and become a Grey Warden. There were a lot of things that led to this. I'll explain when I see you._

_See you in Amaranthine._

_Guaire_

He stared at the letter, trying to figure out what could lead _Guaire_ of all people to leave the Tower. Guaire enjoyed being a Templar. It was the only thing he'd ever wanted to do. Cullen had always taken heart in Guaire's unshakeable faith, and tried to emulate it.

He was drawn out of his thoughts by a small, choked sound coming from Kathil. She was staring at the page she was reading, looking disturbed. If by _disturbed_ he meant apparently expecting the paper to turn into a snake and bite her at any moment. "Bad news?" he asked.

"An answer." She closed her eyes and bowed her head. "Not the answer I wanted. I can be a Circle mage or Warden-General. I don't get to be both. In fact, reading between the lines, it seems that there has been something of a sea change among the upper echelons of the Circle. They don't really want me back in the Tower. They'll tolerate my company, but I won't be exactly welcome." He could see her brow furrow. "I save _all_ of their lives, and this is the thanks I get."

"They're afraid of you," Cullen said.

"And they're probably right." She shook her head sharply and folded the letter. "I'm everything they don't want to think about. Maker forbid any of us have _ideas_. Wind us around with obedience, lock us up with duty, entomb us in the Tower and tell us it's for our own _good_. Blame _us_ for the howling coming from the Black City, blame us for the darkspawn, the Archdemons, because it's _easy_ to blame us and to be afraid of us. How easy is it to become a monster when that's what everyone who looks at you sees?"

The mage's hands were shaking, and he reached out to take them in his own. "This isn't just about being a mage," he said. "Is it?"

She swallowed hard. "No. No, it's not. I lost myself, Cullen. Those years I was gone…I've done things I'm not proud of, because after you've killed an Archdemon and survived the experience, it's very difficult to remember how to be a person instead of a machine that kills darkspawn. I was trying so hard to come back, but I was bleeding to death, slowly."

And this was something they had never spoken of, because every time the subject neared those years, her expression had closed and she'd turned away from him. "What brought you back?"

She gave a short bark of a laugh that held no humor. "Letters. I kept finding letters in the Fade, from Alistair. I wanted to come home. I thought he might be home, but he wasn't. So…back to the Tower. The only other place I could think of where I might be home. Where I might be safe." She tightened her hands on his. "Only I wasn't. I was still bleeding. And then…Zevran showed up on the Tower doorstep."

Cullen remembered drawing steel on Greagoir, Zevran behind him, calling Kathil back from where she was wandering in the Fade. "I remember," he said. "I didn't know him well enough at the time to see it, but he was very afraid for you."

Kathil bit her lip. "There are…parts of that story that I will tell you. Some day. Not now. All right?" Cullen nodded, because he could feel the Veil trembling. "Zevran has always asked of me exactly what I am willing to give, and no more. And he never expects me to be anyone other than who I am." She drew a deep breath, and Cullen felt the Veil settle. "Well. Sometimes the choice is to leave the past where it lies. Warden-General it is. Eamon will be pleased, at least."

He realized his mouth was hanging open, and shut it. "That's it? Just…time to go lead the Grey Wardens?"

The mage shrugged, and there was a bit of savage humor in her eyes. "Well, _far_ be it for me to impose my presence where it's not wanted. I could just go to Amaranthine and be an ordinary Grey Warden for a while, or even travel for a bit, but the old wolf was right about more than one thing. Best that I keep myself busy. Besides." She brought his left hand to her mouth, and kissed one of his scarred knuckles. "If I'm going to be a tiger, I have something of a responsibility to keep the wolves in line." When Cullen looked confused, she added, "Ask Leliana about that one."

She released his hands, and reached for another letter. "Hm. Petra or Greagoir? Best take my medicine. What did good Ser Guaire have to say?" She loosened the seal and flipped the red wax up and away. "He was the one with the dark hair and the eyes like Lake Calenhad on a nice day, right?"

"He wrote to tell me he's joining the Grey Wardens, for what reason I have no idea," Cullen replied. "I would have sworn that the mages had no idea what the names of the Templars were."

"You all think the helms disguise who you are, but all they do is make it into a game to figure out who is who." Kathil's lips curved. "So he's joining the Grey Wardens? Too bad Sati didn't live to see it."

He thought he remembered Sati, sitting in the library with Kathil, giggling quietly over a book and sitting entirely too close together. She was tall, with dark hair and dark skin despite the fact that the mages were rarely allowed outside. "Sati," he said, feeling the shape of the name in his mouth. "She was one of the ones who..."

The mage shook her head. "Didn't make it through her Harrowing. At least, so I gather. She just…disappeared in the middle of the night. My first broken heart, and I thought I was going to fair die from the pain. I spent a lot of time draping myself over Jowan and sighing. Very romantic, let me tell you. Possibly a better way of handling heartbreak than I developed later, mind you." She quirked her mouth and opened the letter from Greagoir.

Cullen broke the seal on his own letter from Greagoir. It was several pages folded together, and he rather feared the lecture that must be inside of it. Though why the Knight Commander would be lecturing him now...

_Grey Warden Cullen,_

_I hope this letter finds you well. I was going through some of the Templar records stored in the Tower, and came across the enclosed passages in one of the older books. I do not know if they will be of any use to you, but I thought you might find them interesting. _

_Give my regards to the rest of the Grey Wardens._

_Ser Greagoir, Knight-Commander, the Tower._

Cullen set aside the letter and looked at the papers that had been folded with it. Greagoir had copied these himself, he saw from the familiar handwriting. He had not trusted the Chantry scribe who resided in the Tower with them. The note at the beginning from Greagoir said that these were taken from a book of Templar history, a chapter that had to do with the Grey Wardens.

It began with a list of Templars who had left the Order and gone to the Grey Wardens...and a list of the mages who had gone with them. From the way that the list was arranged, it appeared that each Templar had been assigned a particular mage to watch over. Some of the entries had notes--out of twenty-two mages, only twelve had survived long enough to become a full Grey Warden; twenty of the Templars had gone on to be entered into the Warden rolls. The Joining was not mentioned as the cause of the deaths, but Cullen knew that was what it had to be.

The following page detailed a relationship between the Chantry and the Grey Wardens using antique language that nearly obscured the actual terms of the agreement between them. Cullen set that page aside for further study. The next page used very similar language, but something near the bottom caught his eye. _An' eche unto tha partnere, thet gwan out of t' Towere. F'r lette cam notting a'twixt t'mag an' t'Templar choren, lest daemons brich t'Veil._

Cullen tried to remember the little he'd learned about how to decipher the old language. _And each unto their partner, they went out of the Tower. For let nothing come between a mage and a chosen Templar, lest demons breach the Veil._

Well. _That_ was certainly clear enough.

Mages and Templars had been partnered in the past. He wondered what had changed between then and now. And he wondered why Greagoir had copied out and sent him these particular pages.

He thought it might be something in the way of an apology. He could only dare to hope.

"That's a long face you have there," Kathil said. "Bad news?"

"Good question," he said, and folded the pages together. "Something I'm going to have to think about for a bit. What's your letter about?"

"Comings and goings, mostly. And, look at this." She held out a page to him. "Petra is on her way to Amaranthine, along with three of the other mages. Nobody's saying in these letters just what's happened at the Tower, but obviously _something_ has."

Cullen eyed her. "You say that like you're planning to go find out what it is."

"A small detour before we go to Amaranthine." Kathil added Petra's letter to the pile, then shoved the papers into her book. "We could spend the worst of the winter in Redcliffe and travel to Amaranthine when the weather clears a bit. We need to escort the Tranquil with the Mabari to the Tower, even if we're not planning on staying." She put her book to one side and caught his hand in hers again. She lay down and pulled him down beside her. "Too much worrying about the future," she said and her voice was warm. "We have a few weeks to talk about it yet."

Afternoon sunlight was pouring in the window, falling over the two of them and touching the mage's pale hair with gold. Her eyes were half-lidded, and when he brushed her cheek with the backs of his fingers, they closed all the way.

A moment later, her breathing deepened, and to all appearances she fell asleep as abruptly as Fiann sometimes did. Asleep, her face smoothed and her lips parted just slightly, and if it were not for the scar and the dark circles beneath her eyes she might have been the mageling he'd known back in the Tower.

Except not. The mageling was dead, and the Grey Warden lived.

Cullen kept watch for a time, but the air was so warm and the light so golden that he slipped down into sleep himself.

*****

_Lorn:_

There are things it is important for a pup to know.

Fiann, like her mother, smells of obsidian, but not yet of either blood or darkness, just sweet milk and that universal young-thing-smell that makes Lorn forgive all of her mistakes. Like chasing cats.

_Especially_ chasing cats.

And chickens.

And sparrows, and running children, and sometimes nothing at _all_.

For however-manyth time, he goes to fetch Fiann from where she has run off to. She is determinedly scrabbling at a mouse hole. This time, instead of grabbing the line, he scruffs the pup in his great jaws and picks her up. She hangs limply, whining. What did she _do_? Is she in _trouble_?

He breaks into a trot. Down this hall and around the corner, follow the smells of food and fire and sweat and iron—

Lorn puts Fiann down. Here. Here is the kitchen.

Kitchens are _important_. He glances at her to make sure she's paying attention. Kitchens are where biscuits come from. And gingerbread. And cheese, and bits of mutton with deliciously charred edges, and cider.

Fiann wiggles with excitement and makes a break for it, intending to dash into the kitchen and bark demandingly. He whacks her with a paw and sends her tumbling. Pay _attention_. Watch.

The pup's eyes go wide and she scoots back against the wall. Lorn gets to his feet and walks into the kitchens, surveying the people. He knows all of them, and picks an easy one, an elf barely out of puphood himself, who has soft hands and soft voice and soft heart. He is starting to get a bit of a crust on him like the rest in here, but he is still soft as midwinter snow, or rabbit fur.

He is lonely, this elven pup, and he likes Lorn. He goes to the elf and shoves his nose against his waist, tail wagging. When he turns, Lorn sits down and cocks his head, making sure to set his ears just _so_.

The elf's eyes go even softer and darker than they were. "Oh, dog," he says, and his little voice is almost a sigh. "I was hoping you'd come by. Look, I kept some of my dinner for you." He fishes in the pocket of his apron and hands Lorn part of a roll with some gravy soaked into the edges.

It's _excellent_. He finishes it and graciously licks the elf's hands, wagging his tail hard. Then he glances back at Fiann.

See? _That_ is how it is done.

Fiann knows permission when she sees it. She comes bouncing forward and plunks her hindquarters down right next to Lorn, tilting her head. The elf bursts out with a peal of laughter that is louder than anything Lorn's ever heard from him before. "You have an apprentice, dog! I'm afraid I don't have anything more. You're going to have to go beg from someone else."

Lorn gives her a _whuff_ to tell the elf that he forgives him, then gets up and scruffs Fiann again. Your ears were all _wrong_, he tells Fiann as he trots out of the kitchen. But you'll do.

He takes her on a tour of all of the important places in this territory: the signpost tree in the courtyard where all the Mabari males compete to see who can leave the freshest and highest mark, the exits and entrances that must be guarded, the hole in the wall that smells most intoxicatingly of both rabbit and fox. But Fiann is beginning to flag, her feet dragging, and Lorn catches the scent of obsidian and blood and knows Yvrenne is about.

He gives a sharp bark to call her, and sits down. Fiann drops down beside him, panting, and snuggles into his side. She gives him a brief wag. Are all his days like this? So _busy_?

This? This day was _easy_. But less fun than the days when there is battle, and things to bite. She will learn.

Humans and elves and one of the cracked-stone smelling people called _dwarves_ pass by, and Lorn ignores them, until he catches a familiar scent. Fiann perks up. Big-hooved-mage-smelling-thing! He scratched me before! The human passes by without a glance at the two of them, much to Fiann's disappointment.

Lorn sniffs. Horse and mage, iron and blood. Familiar. He remembers a basement, shadows and undead, and a boy overlaid with the unmistakable scent of _demon_. Rotting hay. The faint, foul reek of rat warrens.

There are many people here, with many smells, and some of them are ones he has met before. This must be one of them. Yvrenne finally finds them. She growls without any real malice at Lorn and collects her wayward pup. Without a backward glance, she trots off with Fiann capering at her side.

Lorn stays where he is, thinking about the human who smells of iron and blood.

Then he shakes himself and goes to do his rounds. Perhaps his human's elf will return soon, or the singer, wherever they have gotten themselves to.

*****

_Zevran:_

It was an afternoon without bloodshed, which was a pity.

But it was an enjoyable afternoon nonetheless. He'd met with a few people and concluded a very particular piece of business to the satisfaction of all, then taken himself to the Gnawed Noble for some productive eavesdropping as well as a few glasses of the bartender's fabled concoctions. Besides, if he were correct…

And yes, he was.

The door opened to reveal a certain flame-haired bard, who walked in _exactly_ as if she owned the place. Zevran sat back and waited as Leliana's gaze swept over the half-empty tavern.

She spotted him, and ah, that look of _dismay_.

The bard walked up to the bar, claimed a cup of cider, and came to drop down in the chair across the table from him. "I thought I was supposed to be the bard here, Zevran."

"And you are therefore supposed to hold the monopoly on predicting the actions of people one has known such a very long time, yes?" He smirked at her. "We know each other, sweet mouse. You are occasionally predictable."

Leliana rolled her eyes. "Why I tolerate you…"

Zevran shrugged. "I am useful, no? And I have done you _such_ favors recently. So I must ask—who was the girl?" Leliana raised an eyebrow. "The one I killed. She bore a remarkable resemblance to our Grey Warden, and there is only one person who could have taught her to impersonate Kathil for even the short period of time that she did. So. Who was she?"

The bard sipped her cider, and there was a grim look in her blue eyes. "I have no idea where they found her. She sounded like she was from the south. She had an education, so she came from wealth if not nobility. All I knew about her, really, was that her name was Evvy. Short for Evangeline, I think. She had quite the talent for mimicry. Younger than Kathil by a few years."

"Kathil's mother was from the south, yes? Perhaps a cousin." He took a swallow of his own drink, keeping an eye on those around them. Only a few were close enough to eavesdrop, and those were deep in their own conversations.

Leliana was frowning. "This is eating at you, isn't it?" He opened his mouth to deny, and she held up her hand and shook her head. "I recognize the signs when I see them. I liked setting up things to fall that way about as much as you liked your part in it, Zevran. But it is done with, and if you are the wise man I think you are, you will _not_ mention to Kathil anything about the girl, yes? I surely will not."

She had a point. But still…he misliked it, for reasons that he did not wish to think about too much right at the moment. "Should she get some idea in her head about seeking out her mother's family—"

"You will discourage her, yes?" Now Leliana's eyes had gone just a little flinty. "As will I, if I am there."

Now this brought up an interesting question. "Are you not due to go back to Orlais at the end of the summer, my Chantry mouse? Has that changed?"

"Ferelden is _terrible_ in the winter, Zevran." She wrinkled her nose. "All that _snow_. And nobody here knows how to make boots that flatter the feet rather than making them ugly. I have some business in Orlais that may take me into Tevinter, but I will probably be back in Ferelden by early summer next year."

Zevran gave her half a smile over the rim of his cup. "And you cannot stay away from our Grey Warden for very long, can you?"

She arched an eyebrow. The bard was many different women, and for each of her friends she wore a different face. All of them were the true woman, and none of them were. For him, she was always the ally who had a mind and a tongue quick as the flash of sunlight on a dagger, sharp-voiced and savvy to his games. "You have little room to speak, I suspect."

"But _far_ more reason," he said, pushing his luck.

Leliana snorted gently. "She will need me, Zevran. As she will need you, and Cullen, and Lorn. Besides, Fereldan politics are so _brash_. It is an interesting change."

Which was an answer, but not to the question he had asked.

He finished his drink, draining the dregs and grimacing as the alcohol bit deeply at the back of his throat. "I will see you tonight, then? For I think we are summoned to a late supper with the King and Princess Consort."

"After this morning, that should be…amusing." Leliana smiled at him, and he nodded to her and left.

Back to the palace he went; he had located rooms outside the palace that would be suitable for them, but with Rima having turned abruptly reasonable (not that he trusted that turn, but it would do for the moment), he did not know if they were going to need them. He still felt exposed, far too exposed. The summer was drawing to a close. In a matter of weeks, they would be leaving Denerim.

It could not come soon enough for him.

He reached the room he shared with Kathil and opened the door. Rather than the interrogatory bark he expected, he was greeted with silence. Lorn was not present, but both Kathil and Cullen were sprawled on the bed, fully clothed, the Templar's arm over the mage. Both of them were deeply enough asleep that they did not stir at his entrance.

He considered the two of them. He fully understood the appeal that Cullen held for his Grey Warden, and since the two of them had begun their liaison, there was a hurt he could never have reached in her that seemed to be easing. And the man had surprised Zevran by stubbornly refusing to become jealously possessive. Out of the Tower, away from the strictures of life in service to the Chantry, that part of him had submerged and had not been seen again.

This would not last. Could not last. _But what in life does?_

He did not look forward to the inevitable end, but he would enjoy this while it was with them.

Zevran quietly stowed the little package he carried in the cupboard that held most of his possessions, and then sat on the edge of the bed nearest Kathil to take off his boots. Alerted to his presence, the mage stirred. "You're back," she said in a voice furry with sleep. Behind her, Cullen opened his eyes, and the transformation from sleeping Templar to awake and ready to kill whatever might threaten his charge Templar was swift and complete. Then he recognized Zevran, and relaxed.

"I am, at that," Zevran said. He dropped his boots and lay down next to Kathil. The afternoon light was starting to fade as the sun dipped toward the horizon. "Where is your redoubtable hound?"

Cullen choked. "Oh, Maker's _Breath._ Fiann. I need to go check and make sure she got back to the kennels all right."

The Templar made a move to get up, but Kathil caught his arm. "Lorn is trustworthy, and if he didn't get her back I bet Yvrenne came to find them. Lorn's probably just off doing Mabari things. The guards know where we are, if need be. Stay here, Cullen. Please."

And there were all kinds of things in that request that were not spoken, and she turned her head so her eyes met Cullen's. Zevran remembered certain delicious possibilities he and Kathil had discussed, remembered dancing with Cullen the night before.

Cullen relented. "You're right. It's just—if you wanted to be alone with Zevran?"

"It's all right for you to be here," the mage said. She freed Cullen's arm and reached up to pull his head down, claiming his mouth for a kiss. "Besides. I'm feeling _much_ better after sleeping most of the day today." Zevran leaned over and murmured a suggestion into Kathil's ear. "And _that_ sounds like a very interesting idea, Zev."

"Always happy to oblige," he told her, and her wickedly impish smile answered him.

She moved abruptly, bringing one leg up and over Cullen's stomach, pulling herself into a sitting position. Her robes puddled around her legs, showing only the toes on one bare foot. She learned forward and spoke into Cullen's ear, and though at first he looked like he was thinking about fleeing, a moment later there was an intrigued expression in his eyes, and he glanced at Zevran.

And a few minutes after _that_, Kathil was down to her smallclothes and Zevran and Cullen were learning the basics of how to work together to elicit the most exquisite noises and reactions from her. _Start him slow,_ she had said. _Give him something familiar to cling to. With a bit of patience, he'll get brave._

Kathil seemed perfectly content to be used as a game board between them for the moment, and Zevran did not press. Not yet. And this was a most pleasant distraction.

All too soon, and before anyone other than Kathil had so much as gotten undressed, it was time to get ready for dinner. "We can continue this later," the mage said, and there were wicked promises in her voice. "For now, let's go be polite."

Cullen growled something under his breath, and she gave the Templar a sweet smile. "I have to—ah—change," Cullen said, and with that he was out of bed and across the room, letting Lorn in as he left. The warhound came to shove his head under Kathil's hand.

"Good pup," she told him as she scratched behind his ears. "We are terrible people," she said to Zevran. "Corrupting Templars."

"He's a Grey Warden now, is he not?" Zevran pointed out. "And if you are anything to go by, little bird, that darkspawn taint increases all kinds of hungers."

"Food, sex, _everything_," she said, and stretched. The scars on her shoulder shifted and puckered as she rolled that shoulder, loosening the joint. "Speaking of, the last thing I ate was those honey cakes, this morning. I am starving."

He pulled on a clean shirt, and then snagged a clean set of robes from her drawer and tossed it at her. "Though it is a shame to cover that lovely body, I am sure our hosts would appreciate us all being dressed at dinner."

"Pity." She wriggled into her robes, settling them on her shoulders and reaching for the wide fabric band that would wrap around her middle. "Oh. I think I'm going to Amaranthine to be Warden-General, Zev. Feel like coming along?" Though her words were casual, how she was holding her shoulders and her mouth told him that she both anticipated and feared his answer.

He lifted an eyebrow. "I go where you do, my Grey Warden." Those words came from that place of certainty within him, that place where, against everything he'd ever known, he held an unshakeable belief in this woman. "Amaranthine, it is."

The way she lit up at his words, and the _very_ sound kiss he received a moment later—both of those confirmed that belief.

As they went out into the hall to meet Cullen, Zevran thought about Amaranthine, about the possibilities that the place enclosed. Warmer than the Tower, and far more populated. People coming and going, ships putting in at the harbor. Commerce and information flowing like a river through it.

_This, I believe, is going to be amusing._

_

* * *

_

_Author's Note: I have some time in the next few days, so unless something unforeseen happens, the next chapter or two should be up by the first part of next week. Thank you, everyone who's read and commented! And my apologies for the line of "old language"--it's a bit of extremely mangled Middle English.  
_


	9. Disarm

**Nine: Disarm**

**

* * *

  
**

"_The killer in me is the killer in you."  
--Smashing Pumpkins, "Disarm"_

_

* * *

  
_

_Kathil:_

That night, she let Cullen go back to his room alone.

The afternoon's dalliance had been delightful, but she could tell that the idea of continuing it was something that Cullen was going to have to think about for a bit. It would be all right if it never went beyond where they had left it; perhaps it was just a temporary madness.

She rather thought that there was going to be a repeat, and likely more. If she were to wager, that was.

Kathil sat at the desk in her room, staring at a blank sheet of paper, trying to collect her thoughts. Zevran was sitting cross-legged on the bed, reading the letter that she'd gotten from Irving earlier. "You are right," he said now, frowning. "Something has happened. Are you certain you wish to investigate? The Circle may not appreciate it."

"The sodding Circle has no _choice_, Zev," Kathil said, frowning deeply. She pushed her chair back and turned it around so she was sitting facing him. "I need to know what's going on there, because if the Tower comes apart at the seams, we could be facing yet another crisis. Best find out sooner rather than later."

"As you say." He set aside Irving's letter, and held out a hand to her. "Come here, little bird? I have a gift for you."

She abandoned her chair and scrambled onto the bed. Lorn, lying curled on his big pillow at the foot of the bed, lifted his head, then apparently decided that his human was just being strange in that human way she had and tucked his nose back into his flank.

"You found something in the market for me?" she asked. "New quills, I bet."

Zevran chuckled. "Not quite." He reached behind him and handed her a shallow box made of dark wood, a bit larger than palm-sized. The wood was polished to a finish nearly silk-like, and warmed in Kathil's hand as she took it from him.

She glanced at Zevran, and opened the box.

Inside it were loops of glittering metal chain, studded with gems. She sucked in a breath and gently slipped her fingers beneath the chain and lifted it.

It was a necklace made of some of the finest chain she had ever set eyes on, in a metal that looked like silver but didn't shine quite like it. The gems were sapphires in varying shades, from nearly green to almost black, set at the intersections of woven chain. There was one slightly thicker chain, from which the woven chains fell, anchoring it. "It's _beautiful_, Zev."

"Ah, but I have not told you what it is for," he said, and she saw him smile. "See the center, where there is a space between the chains? That is for your Oath. The smaller chains detach when you do not wish to wear them."

She could see the clasps now, where the draped chains that held the gems would detach from the thicker chain. After laying the necklace back in its box, she pulled her Warden's Oath off of her neck and undid the chain, sliding the battered vial off of the chain she had worn every day since that night she had become a Grey Warden.

There was a clasp on the necklace for the vial, and she attached it and held it up. "Help me put it on?"

He did, lifting her hair away from her neck and fastening the clasp of the necklace. The woven chains settled against her throat as if they belonged there, as if they had always been there. "Do you like it?" he asked, and took advantage of her bared neck to drop a kiss just below her ear.

"Zev, I _love_ it." She twisted around so she could look at him, saw a smile playing around the corners of his mouth, eyes glinting. "Where on earth did you find it?"

"Ah, that would be telling, would it not?" Now the smile was decidedly present. "The sapphires, I have been holding on to since Orzammar, thinking I would eventually find a use for them. The rest…it is possible to find almost anything in the market district, is it not? Rare metals, a dwarf skilled in the finer points of jewelry making…you see, yes?" He traced a finger from her jaw down to her neck. "It simply seemed a shame that you had nothing beautiful to set your Oath into."

She touched her Oath, felt how anchored it was with the metal weaving surrounding it. She pulled Zevran's mouth to hers, kissing him lingeringly. "You are an _altogether_ terrible man," she murmured. "You let me think you were sleeping your way through the King's Guard and half of the nobles, but that is exactly what you were _not_ doing, was it?"

Zevran smiled. "Only a little," he admitted. "Mostly, I was parting them from their money."

"Wicked," she muttered. "Very wicked, Zev." She set her forehead against his, the ends of their noses touching. "And I mean that in the best possible way."

She claimed his mouth again, and for a long time there were no words between them at all.

The next afternoon, she headed to the library to start in on some work she had been neglecting. Cullen was off showing Fiann various parts of Denerim, and Zevran and Leliana were sparring with some of the Guard. Lorn was with her, at her side with his claws ticking against the stone.

She dropped down in her chair, the familiar mess of her work around her. She pulled three books from her stack: a thin tome that was largely made up of charts and maps, a thicker book about the distribution of plants along the north shore of the Waking Sea, and one bound in dark red leather that was, as far as she could tell, the most accurate book about the first Exalted Marches currently extant.

Kathil went to drop them in the middle of her workspace, and paused. There was something on the table that hadn't been there the last time she was here. After setting the books to one side, she picked up the object—a small metal box with a clasp.

She flipped open the clasp and lifted the lid. Inside was a folded piece of parchment. Frowning, she picked up the note, opening it to see Cullen's now-familiar handwriting.

_Saw these at the market and remembered you talking about wanting some. Hope I got the right ones._

_C._

Beneath where the note had lain, there was a set of four steel nibs and a pen and holder made of horn. The nibs were plain, but the quality of the work was unmistakable. The four nibs each had a different type of end, one broad and three pointed.

They were every bit as fine as the ones she had seen in Orzammar and dismissed as a frivolous expense. She dropped down in her chair abruptly, and the wood creaked beneath her assault. She wondered where he had come up with the money for them. Grey Wardens didn't precisely get a salary—and neither did Templars. In the Tower, at least, there was nothing to spend coin on anyway.

She would have to ask him. For the moment, though, she took an oddly satisfying pleasure in testing each of the nibs against her finger, picking the one that felt the most like the quill tips she usually cut, and fitting that nib into the holder and the holder into the pen with a click.

Not a jeweled necklace. But just as thoughtful, and just as precious. And both made something flutter in her stomach and just beneath her breastbone.

Kathil opened her books, pulled out and arranged her notes, and got to work.

The metal nib was a little difficult to get used to at first, but the horn pen was comfortable and warmed nicely in her hand, and she soon was writing almost as quickly as she would with a quill. She cross-referenced descriptions from the book about the Exalted Marches with the herbal, trying to match mentions of plants in one book with listings in the other. It was work that required a lot of flipping through the herbal, trying to find common plant names that might be listed in unexpected places.

Lorn stirred and rumbled, and Kathil heard footsteps approaching. She wiped her pen on the ink cloth and looked up.

The person who approached her looked—familiar.

He was dressed as a messenger, plain clothing and sturdy boots. He had a hat pulled low over his eyes, but under the hat his hair was dark, and he wore a full beard that hid much of his lower face and blurred the outline of his jaw. But—that _slouch_. And the way his hand was reaching out—

_Jowan._

But Jowan was _dead_.

"Kathil," the man said, and it was Jowan's _voice_. _Maker's Breath._ Beside her Lorn had picked up on the sudden turbulence in her and was growling, low and steady. "Please, Kathil. I need to speak with you."

"You're dead," she said, but her voice was a breathy squeak. "They _executed_ you." She had told Bann Teagan to kill him. It was far less cruel than what the Templars would have done to him once they'd gotten their hands on him, and even after everything that had happened, after Jowan had betrayed _everything_ she thought they had believed—she could not bring herself to turn him over to the Templars.

He had broken her heart not once but _twice_ and he was standing there asking to talk to her.

_Merciful Andraste, I am a fool._

She stood abruptly, and next to her Lorn was on his feet. The warhound's ears were flattened. Was this a bad man?

"Maybe," she muttered. "This way." There was a study off the library that would be empty this time of day, and the walls were thick. If it came down to a shouting match—or a fight—nobody would be alerted until it was over.

She showed Jowan into the study and shut the door behind them. "Explain," she said, and her voice was low and murderous. "Now."

Jowan pulled his hat off, revealing black hair matted to his head with sweat. "I escaped," he said sourly. "Or maybe Teagan let me go. Hard to tell. All I know is that there was a moment where the key was in reach and the guards were distracted. So I ran."

"You _do_ know that Arl Eamon and Arlessa Isolde are in Denerim right now, yes?" From the startled look on Jowan's face, he had not. "What do you _want_, Jowan?"

He held his hands out to her, palms up. His hands had once been her favorite part of him. Now, they were scarred, white lines crisscrossing the palms, winding around the fingers. "Conscript me, Grey Warden," he said in a low voice. "I volunteer."

She stared at him, and she saw the little line appear between those raven-sharp brows that was always there when he was trying to talk her into something. "No."

"But—"

"_No,_ Jowan." She turned on her heel and took three steps away from him, coming up against the window that looked down into the large courtyard on the castle interior. "You do _not_ get to do what you've done and then come crawling back to me asking to be conscripted. Putting the whole _maleficar_ issue aside—" because really, did _she_ have much room to talk there?— "you nearly killed someone who I consider a friend. Forced me to go on a two _sodding_ month side trip to one of the creepier ends of Ferelden to find something—anything—that would bring him back, because without him I didn't stand a chance of uniting this country." She turned to face him. "Not to mention that _you betrayed me_. You insisted you weren't a blood mage, Jowan."

"And is that all you see when you look at me, Kathil?" he asked, and his voice was steady. "Only a blood mage? Just like you are _only_ a Grey Warden? I told you that I wanted to put things right. I can't do that if I'm dead." He took a breath, and he closed his eyes. "I am so sorry, about everything. You have no idea just _how_ sorry. If I could go back and fix everything, I would. But I can't, and we—"

"We," she echoed quietly. "There is no _we_ any more. We were friends, once, and all I ever wanted was for you to be happy. But you got Lily sent to the Aeonar, and me conscripted into the Grey Wardens, and then you showed up like a bad copper in Redcliffe. You're supposed to be dead, Jowan. Why aren't you?"

There was little humor in his eyes. "Because you and I are very good at one thing. Surviving."

And by the Maker, it was _true_.

Jowan was a year older than her, but he'd arrived only a little while before she had. They had been lost in the halls of the Tower together, a pair of skinny children who crept along the walls as if their hands on the stone could make sense of this, could make sense of the way everything from before the men in armor and the lake melted and twisted together. As they'd grown up and learned how to use their talents, they had gotten in trouble more times than Kathil could count.

The Senior Enchanters had spoken of trying to separate the two of them, but there was really no separating two apprentices in the Tower. They always found each other again, whispering behind doorways, climbing to the tops of bookcases and lying along the dusty tops, their heads touching.

Jowan was the only person she'd ever told about her friendship with Cullen.

They had stolen for each other, lied for each other. She still remembered Jowan claiming that _homework_ had required them to sneak out of the Tower and to the shore of Lake Calenhad, where they had been discovered by a Templar on outside rounds. All they had wanted to do was go wading, but the Templars had acted like the touch of lake water on their ankles meant that demons were about to take their bodies and go on a rampage.

Miraculously, the Templars had believed Jowan's lie, and had even gone and given the enchanter who'd given them that supposed homework a talking-to. It wasn't the first time, or the last, that Jowan would get the two of them out of a tight spot.

They'd survived.

Until they had grown up, and grown a little apart. And then had come her Harrowing and Jowan had asked her for a favor, _that_ favor, and all she had ever wanted was that he be happy, even if it meant that he was going to leave the Tower forever. And she couldn't _stand_ the thought of him being made Tranquil. So she'd helped him and hadn't even considered going to Irving about it.

Then everything had exploded in her face, and when it was done her life in the Tower was over and Jowan was gone.

Now, he was here.

"I should kill you," she said, her voice low and cold.

That was such a familiar expression on his face, though the beard hid how one corner of his mouth lifted and curled upward. "You could _try_." His voice was equally low. "I'm more dangerous than I look, Kathil."

She snorted gently. "So am I. And the answer is still no."

Jowan shook his head. "You're going to need me, I think."

"And why is that?"

"Because I know what's going on at the Circle Tower. Why they've suddenly had a bunch of mages and Templars leave for the Grey Wardens." He glanced at her hands, and she realized that she'd curled her fingers into fists, and there was lightning sparking along her skin.

She swallowed and steeled herself, and the sparks went out. "How do you know?"

Jowan shrugged. "Because I was there. Sort of. And I…well, I suppose you _could_ say I started it."

Kathil managed a strangled, "_What_?" before the sparks along her skin were back, and she gritted her teeth and yet again got hold of herself.

Then the door slammed open and _Maker's Balls_ there was Cullen standing there with his sword in his hand and Fiann doing her best intimidating puppy bark behind him and Lorn had moved, ears flattened and head held low, advancing on Jowan.

And if she didn't do something this was going to end altogether _badly_—

*****

_Cullen:_

It _had_ been a pleasant day.

He'd walked around Denerim with Fiann in tow, carrying her when she got tired. She was getting almost too big to carry comfortably; fortunately, her stamina was also improving. They had gone to the Alienage and Fiann had flirted her way through the entire place. They'd gone to the market district, and to Wade's Emporium (where Wade, the smith, had been delighted to see them and inquired as to whether Fiann was going to need an armored collar; Herren, his shopkeeper, had just groaned) and to the Wonders of Thedas. They had stopped by the Chantry and then come back to the palace.

He'd thought to stop by the library and then go back to the kennels so Fiann could have a well-deserved meal and nap. But when he'd gotten to the library, Kathil wasn't immediately apparent, and there was the feeling of the Veil shredding coming from behind a study door.

He hadn't even thought before his sword was out of its sheath and he was bursting through the door into the study. Kathil was standing there, with her shoulders set and lightning on her fingertips, Lorn was growling, and the other person in the room—

The messenger.

But his hat was off now and Cullen could see his eyes. Shock washed over him. It was _Jowan_.

The blood mage.

_I thought he was dead—_

Templar training kicked in, and Cullen focused his will and released the cleansing. Jowan staggered; Kathil's lightning went out. Cullen shifted his grip on his sword and stepped forward, intending to run Jowan through.

"_HOLD, _Cullen! Lorn, _stop_!"

And that was discipline too, the way the barked word froze him in place for a moment, and Kathil was in front of him with a hand on his chest. "Don't kill him, Cullen." She glanced over her shoulder with a dark look for the blood mage. "Not yet."

He lowered his sword. "Why is he still alive? I thought they'd executed him."

"So did I," she said. Her mouth twisted. "He's alive for the same reason I am, Cullen."

_Because I have done what I had to, to survive_.

She didn't say it, but he saw it on her face. "Fine," he said as he sheathed his sword. "Just let me know when you want him dead."

Because he remembered this mage.

He and Kathil were rarely apart, physically dissimilar (she the bright and he the dark) but two of a kind in how very much _trouble_ they were capable of being. You had to keep a close eye on the two of them, and assume whenever you saw one alone, the other was somewhere about, unseen. They'd been caught trying to escape once, wading into the lake, and had managed to spin some story about _homework_ that he would never understand why _anyone_ had bought.

(And the lake was deep and cold and had unexpected currents, and mages were not taught how to swim. He'd wanted to shake her and yell at her that she could have _drowned_. He hadn't. But he'd wanted to.)

He hadn't been there when Jowan had escaped. He had seen what happened after, the stunned look in Kathil's eyes and the blood spattered on her face, hauled through the entrance hall by the Grey Warden's mailed hand on her arm.

Then she was gone, and then the news of what happened at Ostagar came, and he couldn't help but blame Jowan for her death.

Then, Uldred had happened.

It had all started with Jowan. And from the look on Kathil's face, this was not something she was going to forget easily. _Good._

"You, _sit_." She stabbed a finger at Jowan. "Lorn, leave him alone. Cullen, Jowan was about to tell me how _exactly_ he's managed to break the Circle. _Again._"

There was a rueful look on the blood mage's face, and he dropped into a nearby chair. Kathil leaned against the desk, and Lorn settled at her feet. He heard Fiann move, and she came to lie down next to him, the hair on her back still standing on end.

Cullen stayed where he was, one hand on his sword hilt.

Jowan took a breath, and began to speak.

*****

_Jowan:_

When one had a pair of angry Grey Wardens (and a Mabari who looked _distinctly_ unfriendly) staring at one, it was always prudent to choose one's words carefully.

Even if one of those Grey Wardens was a friend. Maybe _especially_ if that Grey Warden had been one's best friend, once upon a time.

Maker's Breath, how was he going to explain this?

He'd had in his head a picture of the girl he'd once known, a picture that didn't at all match the woman who was staring at him, her arms crossed. Same nearly-white hair, same black eyes, but everything else was different. That scar on her face, the way the bones pressed against her skin, how she stood, how she moved like a warrior, planting her feet. He'd been confident that if he could just get to her and explain, she'd understand.

He'd forgotten that almost four years and a war had passed, and neither of them were going to be the same.

"After Redcliffe…" he began, and faltered as Kathil's eyes narrowed. "All right, after I escaped the execution which, yes, I richly _deserved_, I ran as far as I could get. That happened to be to the south, into the Korcari Wilds. I stayed there for some months, and I made a friend or two while I was down there. One of them was an apostate, a shapechanger. Batty old woman, but she did teach me some things while I stayed with her." He spread his hands. "She sent me off on a trip south to some Chasind she wanted some supplies from, and when I got back I found that someone had come along and killed her while I was gone."

Kathil looked aghast. "You were staying with _Flemeth_?"

He blinked. "You knew her?"

She fisted one hand and put her forehead against it, an expression he couldn't name twisting her face. "I was friends with her daughter. So. Flemeth died. Then what?"

"I left. Figured it was prudent, after all, that whoever had done for her might come back one day. I traveled a lot, practicing the shapechanging. Trying to figure out how I was going to fix everything. I finally settled down in the foothills of the Frostbacks, after I heard the Blight had been broken. Spent about three years there, trying to at least not cause any _more_ damage. Figuring out how to live with the blood magic." He saw Kathil's mouth firm, and shook his head. "It's just another school of magic, Kathil. It has terrible applications, but so does every _other_ school. You can do useful and good things with it. It's just…it does strange things to your mind, is all."

"Makes you want to do things like turn all of the Senior Enchanters into abominations?" Kathil asked, and her voice was not without an edge.

Jowan shook his head. He'd imagined this conversation so many times, and this was always the part where he never knew what to say, or how to say it. "Remember using to learn lightning, how we were so aware that lightning is everywhere? Blood is everywhere. In me, in you, in everyone. Blood stains everything it touches, permanently. It makes noise. It takes time to learn how to tune it out, just like we tune out lightning's crackle, fire's song. I haven't made any pacts with demons."

_Not that there hasn't been ample opportunity._

He took a long breath. "So. I started traveling again about half a year ago. When you're an apostate, you have to keep moving. A couple of months after I left where I'd been living, I came to Lothering. They're still rebuilding, and they were looking for men with strong backs to help. So I hired on for a bit and helped build barns. I was thinking about moving on when a squad of Templars arrived in town. I recognized a couple of them from the Tower. I probably _should_ have just taken my leave, but I was curious. So I arranged to listen in when they went to talk to the Revered Mother. They mentioned that they were collecting more Templars for Tower duty, since they had recently lost twenty men due to some attack on the Tower. Something to do with the Grey Warden who had so recently returned there. So…" He spread his hands, feeling scar stretch. "I went looking for you, Kathil."

"And you didn't think that someone would have _noticed_ that you'd come back?"

He shrugged. "Shapechanging. Flemeth thought the fact that my favorite form was that of a mouse was funny, but mice have sharp ears and noses, they're tiny and agile, and nobody thinks too much about it when they see a mouse. Unlike, say, a giant spider or a bear. I hitched a ride in a crate coming over in the boat, and went looking for you. Unfortunately, you'd been gone for months. And even _more_ unfortunately, there were…tensions between the mages. The various factions have gotten even more fractious, and a sizeable number of the younger mages have broken off into their own faction, claiming that mages are meant to serve the world—and that means running off to join the Grey Wardens."

He could see the light of understanding coming into Kathil's dark eyes. "Petra was one of those?"

"One of them? She _led_ them. Anyway, Petra and a handful of other mages tried to leave. Some of the Templars tried to stop them. Some of the rest defended the mages trying to leave. Greagoir was in favor of killing them all. They kept invoking your name, which as far as I can tell won them no points at all with Greagoir. Irving finally intervened and convinced him that as long as the mages had Templar escort and went right to Amaranthine, they didn't have a whole lot of call to stop them."

"And why did you say you started it?" she asked.

He grimaced. Cullen shifted, and he glanced at the Templar (former Templar, and out of armor he looked so strange), receiving a cold glare in return. "I spoke to Petra," he said, keeping his voice low. "I needed to know where you'd gone, and she seemed the least likely to try to kill me out of hand. She told me Irving had gotten a letter from you, saying you were in Denerim. Then…she started asking me questions. About what it was like to be out of the Tower, what it was like to travel. The next day, she's there shouting at the Templars on the doors."

"Ah, Maker, she has been utterly _spoiling_ to get out of the Tower," Kathil said, and shook her head. "She was always Wynne's pet. Between Wynne's stories, and the stories she got out of _me_, I was half expecting her to demand to come with me when I left for Waking Sea. I think she was only still there because she's terrified of Templars."

"Well. She isn't quite so terrified these days," Jowan said. "Anyway, Irving gave Petra a packet of letters and told her to find a messenger at the docks to go to Denerim with them. I volunteered to carry them the rest of the way. Had to admit I was surprised when she told me that yon Templar was traveling with you."

And _there_.

There it was, a glance between his old friend and the former Templar, and there was something soft and sweet on both their faces. Just a flash, and abruptly he understood _why_ Cullen had come banging in like he had.

_Who would have thought that madness was catching?_

"If you're going to try to set things right with the Circle, you're probably going to need my help," he said. "I have every reason to hate the Tower, Kathil, but…you weren't there. You didn't see what happened. There is something altogether strange happening at the Tower. I can't really explain it."

He was a blood mage, and the Tower was bleeding.

_Blood makes noise._

"The Tower's a necessary evil," Kathil said, her voice quiet. "You've always known that, Jowan. So have I. I might not be a part of it any more, but I also can't let it fall if there's something I can do about it. Of course…there _is_ the possibility that it may have to die in order to change." She raised her chin a little and fixed him with a dark gaze. "I really do not think I need your help. I have _quite_ enough strays as it is."

Jowan clenched his jaw, gritting his teeth together. "Do the Grey Wardens reject blood magic, then?"

"No," she said. "We use whatever we can in the service of what we are made for. This isn't about your magic, Jowan. It's about _you_. And me. And a perfectly sweet sister-in-training who is in the Aeonar because of you. And a little boy who _should_ have been sent to the Tower instead of trained by an apostate—or, at least, that apostate should have secured his books a bit better. And a good man who nearly died. And sodding _war_ I had to fight. Because of you, and your selfishness."

Now he had his arms crossed, as well. Cullen was shifting where he stood, but Jowan spared barely a glance for him. The dangerous person in the room right now was Kathil. "I am not asking for forgiveness. Just a chance to do what I can to remedy my mistakes. To serve something greater than myself. I will do whatever you ask of me, Kathil, as long as I am allowed this."

She drew a sharp breath. "Anything?"

He nodded, not trusting his voice.

"I want a phylactery from you, Jowan." Her voice was measured and inexorable. "A vial of blood, to be enchanted and then stored at a place of my discretion. And should you ever betray me, or the Grey Wardens, know that I will use it to personally hunt you down and kill you. No mercy. You will be under my direct command until such time as I think you might be trusted out of my sight. Understood?"

He felt his whole body sag. Ah, Maker, another phylactery, another leash, another noose. But it was necessary. "Understood, Warden."

Kathil stepped forward. She approached him, stopping only when she was close enough to him that he could feel the hairs raise on the back of his neck from the cold lightning that was threatening to surround her just on the other side of the Veil. She bent down a little and put a hand on his cheek. He felt electricity run along his skin, just a little, under perfect control. "We are not friends," she said in a voice distant and chill as wind across snow. "Remember that, Jowan. Because I surely do."

Then she dropped her hand and stepped away. "We need to find Zevran and Leliana," she said to Cullen, and the warmth was returning to her voice. "Time for a darkspawn hunt. I'll give our apologies to Alistair. Do you think we can be ready to leave in a few hours? I don't want to have this one—" she pointed her chin at Jowan—"in the palace any longer than we have to have him here. Eamon is here, and I don't want to have to explain until after we know whether Jowan's going to survive the Joining. When we get back, I can get someone to tell me why exactly nobody saw fit to mention that Jowan was still running around the world."

Survive? Joining? But the look on Kathil's face forestalled any questions he might have, and he was abruptly distracted as a small, furry form hurtled into his shins. He looked down to see the puppy that had been following Cullen plant her enormous paws on his knees and give a sharp, demanding bark. Scratches now?

He obliged the pup. _Well, at least _someone_ likes me._

He wasn't here to be liked. Fortunately.

But it had been nice to _hope_.

*****

_Alistair:_

"I have to go," Kathil was saying. "We should be back in a week or so to finish out the season here."

He shook his head. "Is it something I can help with? I could send some men with you."

She had appeared in his study, walking through the wall, and from the way her body was nearly thrumming with tension there was something happening. Something big. "No," she said, and there was something about that singular word that set his teeth on edge. "Alistair, I swear I will explain when I return. But right now…we have to go hunt down some darkspawn." She put her hand into her pocket, and then held it out to him, slightly cupped.

In it lay a Warden's Oath. The vial was new, unscratched, the engravings still bright and clear. _In war, victory. In peace, vigilance. In death, sacrifice._

He understood. And he knew better than to ask _who_, because if she wasn't telling him, it was a sure bet that he was not going to enjoy hearing the answer.

"Be safe," he said. "Come back whole."

Unexpectedly, she stepped forward and threw her arms around him. He stiffened and then, awkwardly, returned the hug. "Thank you," she said into his shirt. "For not asking."

Then she released him and was gone, and he was left to rake his hand through his hair and wonder if this was some new disaster about to be dropped onto his head. It wasn't his Warden-sense tingling this time. It was the sense that a storm was gathering, and he was only dimly aware of what it contained.

He hoped beyond hope that they would be equal to whatever approached.


	10. Blood Makes Noise

**Ten: Blood Makes Noise**

**

* * *

  
**

_Kathil:_

"I think you may actually have taken leave of your senses this time," Leliana muttered.

The problem was that Kathil rather agreed with her. They were standing atop a low hill, surveying the landscape. They were four days out of Denerim, and they had only recently started to see darkspawn sign. What darkspawn she had been able to detect had been at the very edge of her range, sullen flickers that had been gone almost as soon as she felt them. Cullen hadn't felt them at all.

"Probably," she said. "Southwest still, I think. At least he hasn't been much trouble."

She really had intended to tell Jowan where he could stuff his request to join the Grey Wardens, and give him an hour to get his traitorous self out of Denerim before she set Cullen on his tail. _To serve something greater than myself_, he'd said, and she'd remembered that he had always been good at magic. If he had survived all of this time as an apostate, he was probably _very_ good. _We take the best and the brightest,_ Duncan had told her. _And if the best and brightest have managed to get themselves into trouble before we can get there, that is what the Right of Conscription is for._

There was still a good chance that the Joining would kill him. If they could manage to find any _sodding _darkspawn to get the last ingredient they needed for it, that was.

Jowan had kept his head down ever since they had left the palace, not speaking unless he was spoken to. Cullen was keeping a wary eye on him, Tower-bred suspicion in every bone. Zevran was reserving judgment. And Leliana, who usually was willing to give _everyone_ a chance (including difficult Princesses Consort) was having absolutely none of it. They'd all seen what Connor had done in Redcliffe. Kathil hadn't known just how much it had upset her friend, though part of it might have been seeing what the demon had done to Teagan.

_It isn't too late just to kill him and be done with it._

Leliana glanced at her, and Kathil realized she'd spoken aloud. "You're not going to, though," the bard said. "As much as he deserves it."

"If he survives, he'll be useful. If he doesn't survive, we don't have a whole lot to worry about. He's given me his phylactery, and I memorized the Litany of Adralla. I still know it by heart. Lei, I'm not expecting you to like him. _I_ don't even like him, at this point, and he used to be the closest thing I've ever had to a brother. But he's a weapon, and I'll feel better when he's either neutralized or under my control."

The bard shaded her eyes, scanning the horizon. "Quite the arsenal you have, dearest."

That stung, and stung _badly_. Kathil opened her mouth to reply, then thought better of what she was about to say. "One might wonder what war I'm planning to fight now," she said dryly. "You don't have to be out here with us, you know. You could head back to Denerim."

"And miss a possible opportunity to put an arrow between Jowan's shoulderblades?" Leliana smiled and dropped her hand. "Never, dearest. I think you're right about going southwest. It looks like we almost have enough trees for a proper forest that way, yes?"

"The darkspawn do like their cover. Let's go roust the boys, then." They headed back to the small camp. They'd left Fiann back in Denerim since she was still unweaned, much to both pup and knight's dismay. They really had thought they'd be able to find some darkspawn within a couple of days of leaving Denerim.

This was turning into a much longer trip than she'd originally wanted, and between the knowledge that something bad was happening at the Tower and Kathil's decision to become Warden-General, she was feeling as if a deadline approached that she was vastly unprepared for. Who would have ever thought that in this country it would be _difficult_ to find some blasted darkspawn to kill?

They traveled for a couple more days, and in the end, they did not find darkspawn.

Instead, the darkspawn found them.

*****

_Jowan:_

He was deep in sleep when the attack came.

Jowan woke to the sound of steel coming free of a sheath, running footsteps, and _this_ was something he had long practice in at least. He rolled out of his blankets and to his feet, snagging and pulling on his shirt as he did so. He'd fight barefoot; that wasn't a problem.

He wasn't even properly awake by the time he cast his first spell, fire flaring out from his fingertips. Nearby, he heard Kathil mutter and felt ice crackle over a group of half-seen darkspawn. "Mind the friendly fire, Jowan!" she called, and next to him he heard a flutter as an arrow hurtled by him and one of the darkspawn fell.

Target. He needed a target.

_There._

Lumbering toward them was an ogre, looming against the star-choked sky. "Ah, my friend," he whispered as he drew his sharp little knife and made a cut across one forearm. "We are all the children of blood, all the children of the great river—we are the Maker's thrumming heartbeat, the sweet slumber of the world—we are the roar of His broken city and His Voice within us—we are _all_ his creations and _you are mine—_"

He did not have to see the blood dripping from his arm to feel it gather itself and lash out like a whip, the ogre pausing as it felt the sting touch its eyes, the confused roar—

And the blood leash tightened, and he knew it had succeeded.

_Now. Kill for me._

The ogre turned on its former fellows, and as it started killing hurlocks he saw Kathil run past him with a bared sword in her hands, Cullen at her heels. "Ignore the ogre!" Jowan screamed over the din of battle, and set himself for another spell, opening another cut in his arm to power it.

He saw Leliana firing arrow after arrow, Zevran parrying with one blade and striking at the same time with the other, moving with efficient grace and somehow managing to target kicks in _exactly_ the right places to cause the darkspawn a world of hurt. He heard the Kathil's Mabari more than saw him, howls and snarls and rending sounds.

The control he had over the ogre was stretched tight—the thing was fighting him—and with an impatient gesture he broke the leash and sent a bolt of energy flying into it. The ogre swayed, its mouth open and slavering, and began to lumber towards Jowan. There was a flash from the side and the ogre froze. Zevran used his blades to _climb_ the darkspawn like a tree, stopping at its shoulder and sinking his longer blade into the massive neck.

The darkspawn fell, crashing into the ground.

Zevran sprang free at the last moment, laughing. He rolled when he hit the ground and came easily back to his feet. "That _never_ gets old."

"And I never cease to have my heart stop every time you do that, Zev," Kathil replied. "Is everyone all right? Lorn, you're bleeding. Jowan, you too."

He blinked and looked down at his arm. His heartbeat was roaring in his ears. "Just—a moment," he said, and turned away. He could feel all of their eyes on him, but it didn't matter right now.

He took a deep breath, calming his heartbeat, slowing the rush of blood through his veins, the song of the blood spilled all around him, blood still contained in the bodies of the living. He pulled his mind back from where it resided near the tatters in the Veil.

Slowly, so slowly, the song of blood faded.

When he turned back around, Kathil was tending to a wound on her Mabari's shoulder, Zevran was rifling through a pouch that the ogre had been wearing, and Cullen and Leliana were poking at their fire, stirring it to life. "Jowan, catch!" Kathil said as she straightened, and tossed him something small. It was a glass vial. "Fill that with darkspawn blood. Quickly. Do you need me to look at your arm?"

"I've got it," he said, and laid his hand on the cuts that were now bleeding only sullenly. A murmur and a moment later, and the skin was sealed over. He collected the required blood from the wound that the elf had opened in the ogre's neck. By the time Jowan had sealed the vial again, those he was traveling with had gathered around the fire, talking in low voices.

He briefly fisted his hand around the vial, then went to go find his boots.

Jowan was pulling them on when he heard a step nearby and paused, raising his head. "We'll move away from here," Kathil said, looking down at him. He hadn't noticed before that she was wearing some armor, cuirass and gloves. "Once dawn comes, we can settle down and I can start preparing for the Joining." She held out her hand. "The vial, please?"

One hand went into his pocket, and he pulled out the vial and handed it up to her. "Are you going to tell me about this ritual?" he asked. "Or do I have to go into it blind?"

"You'll go into it with as much information as anyone gets, which is that it's required to become one of us, and that it's a secret." She opened the pouch she wore at her waist and placed the vial inside. "That's all I knew, when I went through the Joining. You'll understand more when you get there."

There were so many questions he wanted to ask, from _why are you wearing armor_ to _just how dangerous is this ritual?_ He asked none of them. Instead, he finished shoving his feet into his boots. Kathil walked away, back to the fire.

Not for the first time, he considered the wisdom of this whole venture. But he had begun it; he would see it through.

_And hope it ends better than everything else I've tried to do with my life._

*****

_Cullen:_

The cup was made of rough-fired clay, different in every way from the steel cup that had been used at his Joining at Amaranthine. Different, except for the contents--darkspawn blood and lyrium, and a drop of blood from an Archdemon. Kathil had spent a few hours preparing the mixture, and at sundown she and Cullen had gotten Jowan and escorted him out here, to what once had been a large farmhouse and now was a burned-out shell that the land was beginning to reclaim.

Charred beams stood stark against the deepening sky, and Cullen spared a grateful thought that it was late summer, and therefore not raining. The ruin smelled like smoke and dampness, like mushrooms. Kathil was holding the cup, brimming with the dark liquid, and in the gathering dim he could see the waters of the Fade moving in her eyes. Her voice was soft and shadowed. "And should you perish, know that your sacrifice will not be forgotten, and that we will join you all too soon." She held the cup out to Jowan, who took it from her. The blood mage's hands trembled slightly. "Drink," Kathil said. "Drink, and become one of us."

Jowan raised the cup to his lips, closed his eyes, and drank.

He fell to his knees a moment later, then collapsed with his arms wrapped around himself, a scream escaping him. He convulsed once, and was still. The cup lay next to him, the last few drops running out to stain the earth.

Kathil dropped to one knee beside him, and put her hand to his neck. "He's alive," she said, and Cullen couldn't tell if that was relief or disappointment coloring her voice. "He'll wake in a little bit. Do you still have the vial, Cullen?"

He gave her the glass vial. She murmured, and a spark set alight the torch that she'd set in a twisted piece of metal still attached to a beam. The Veil thinned, tore, and reformed whole once more. "It never gets any easier," she said. "You hand someone a cup that you know sodding well is going to kill them, whether it's now or in thirty years, and watch them drink."

"How many Joinings have you stood at?" Cullen asked, giving Jowan's still form an uneasy look.

"Three, not counting my own." Kathil tipped the contents of the glass vial into the Warden's Oath she held in her other hand, holding both up to the light. "The third one, all four of the initiates died. That was about a week before Alistair's wedding." She capped the Oath, muttering a word, and the place where the cap and the vial met melted and melded together.

His mage bent her head and her hair fell to obscure her expression, torchlight throwing strange shadows under the pale. "Sebastian. Cainnec. Maia. Jubal. One member of the King's Guard, one farmer from a hold near Lothering, one Chantry archivist, and one elf from the Denerim alienage who I found in prison. All of them dead because I thought they had a chance to master the taint, but they didn't. It was about then that I decided the Grey Wardens were better off without me."

He stepped over to her, first putting a hand on her shoulder and then, when she didn't move, putting his arms around her. She turned her face into his shoulder, and he felt her take a deep, shuddering breath. "You remember all of their names."

"All of them. All of the ones who died during the Joinings I was a part of. All of the Templars and mages and servants who died at the Tower. People who died at Fort Drakon when I called them to help fight the Archdemon."

He didn't know what to say, and instead pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

Behind them, Jowan groaned, and Cullen released Kathil. "Maker's Balls, that _hurt_," the blood mage said as he rolled to his back, staring up at blackened beams and open sky. "No wonder you don't tell anyone about the Joining before they get there."

"You're alive. It's better than many do," Kathil said. Her voice had that dry edge that it often had when she was speaking to her old friend. "Congratulations, Grey Warden." She held out a hand to Jowan, and when he took it she pulled him up and to his feet.

"What happens now?" Jowan asked.

Kathil rolled her bad shoulder. "We head back to Denerim. After that…I don't know yet. Ask me again when we get closer. This is for you, Jowan." She held out the Warden's Oath to him. "It has a little bit of your darkspawn blood in it. We wear them in remembrance of those who have fallen."

Jowan cupped his hand under the Oath, and Kathil dropped it into his hand, the chain making a metallic shushing noise. "Those who have fallen," he said, echoing Kathil. Cullen could see an odd look in the mage's eyes. "All who've fallen, or just Grey Wardens?"

"Your choice," she said. She raised her hand and touched her own Oath. "I choose to wear mine to honor of all those who have lost their lives helping me." She stooped to pick up the cup. "I'll see you both back at camp. I'm going for a walk."

Before Cullen could protest that it was dark, and there dangerous things likely about, Kathil had turned and walked away, taking the cup with her. Jowan's hand closed over his Warden's Oath. "She's changed, since the Tower."

He might have been talking to himself. Cullen answered anyway. "So have we all."

"I've noticed." There might have been questions in Jowan's expression, but Cullen turned away, willing himself not to see them. They were fellow Grey Wardens, now.

It changed everything. And it changed nothing.

"Back to camp," Cullen said. "Kathil will be back soon enough."

"And if she encounters something she can't handle in the woods?" Jowan asked. "Maybe we should—"

"_No_." The snap in his voice surprised him. "Leave her alone." Without waiting to hear anything Jowan might say in return, he walked away. After a moment, he heard the blood mage follow.

_Not to complain, Maker, but you have a strange sense of humor sometimes._

*****

_Zevran:_

He had thought his Grey Warden might stay out in the woods all night.

Fortunately, she did not. He had taken the late watch, and so was awake when approaching footfalls announced her presence. The fire was burning low, but the sky was clear and the stars were casting soft shadows under the trees, their light reflecting off of Kathil's hair as she emerged into the clearing. He stood and waited for her to approach.

"Drew the short straw, did you?" she said, cocking her head at him.

He shrugged. "I could lie and say that I did, if you like."

"Don't bother." She came to him then and wrapped her arms around him, and he returned the embrace. She smelled strongly of ice tonight, as if what he held in his arms was a glacier rather than a woman. "Sorry I was gone so long. I had some thinking to do."

"I thought you might. It is not every day one inducts someone with such a…problematic past into the Grey Wardens, no?"

"Less about the past and more about what I'm going to do with him now that I have him. Taking Jowan back to the palace would be a _very_ bad idea." She shook her head and fisted one hand in his shirt. "I'm not letting him out of my sight until I'm sure I'm not going to need to kill him. Fiann still has something like three weeks until she's ready to leave Yvrenne, so we can't leave Denerim yet. Did you mention that you had located some rooms that might suit?"

"I did," he said. "Though they will be somewhat of a tight fit with five of us and Lorn, I think. Perhaps Leliana will wish to stay in the palace."

Kathil snorted. "That leaves _me_ as the only female in the place. If you decide to hold belching contests, I am going to beat you all. Severely."

"Tch. Would we do that, little bird?" he asked, all innocence.

She rolled her eyes. "If Oghren were around, _yes_. Or do you forget I was there that night?"

"I also seem to recall you engaging in some sort of drinking game with our redoubtable dwarf that same night, no?" he pointed out.

His Grey Warden groaned. "Don't remind me. It's been years and I still get a headache every time I smell ale. What I was thinking…"

What she had been thinking was that they had been nine months on the road and the Archdemon still loomed ahead of them, they had just returned from the Deep Roads, and she and Alistair had just had one of their rare arguments. She'd sat down with Oghren and started drinking. Zevran had watched her out of the corner of his eye all night, as her eyes had taken on a dangerous, glazed brightness and her voice had begun to slur.

She'd lasted quite a bit longer than he had expected, but eventually she had toppled over where she sat, pillowing her head on her arm. No demons had been summoned in her intoxication, fortunately.

No, the demons had shown up the next morning.

He shook off the memory. "Do you still mean to go back to the Tower?" he asked.

Her body tensed against his. "Yes. Do me a favor, though, Zev?"

"Anything, my Grey Warden."

"If I am so very _stupid_ as to suggest that I stay there, for _any_ reason—don't let me. If you have to, hit me over the head and drag me away." She grimaced and set her chin on his shoulder.

He chuckled, just a little. "I do not think it will come to that. But I promise, should you suffer a bout of madness and decide that the Tower cannot possibly do without you, I will spirit you away."

There was Cullen, and there was Jowan, and what had once been a refuge was no longer and would never be again. They had all left sanctuaries twisted and burned in their wake.

He held his Grey Warden, and tried not to muse on the wreckage they had all left behind them.

*****

_Alistair:_

"Don't you ever _knock_?"

Kathil smiled. "Do I have to, Alistair? Besides. Knocking means that your guards have to see me, and if your guards see me one of them might mention to Rima that, oh, the Grey Warden mage was visiting the King last night in his study, and we've only just now gotten to the point of being civil with each other." She pulled one of the chairs that usually sat on the other side of the desk from his around to his side, and dropped into it.

He rolled his eyes. "Fine. Just wander in whenever you feel like, then."

"I _did_ listen to make sure you didn't have anyone else in here," she pointed out. The mage chewed briefly on her lower lip. "Look, Alistair. There's some things you ought to know. Starting with the newest Grey Warden recruit. You're not going to like it. Maker _knows_ I didn't."

Usually, she would just haul off with unpleasant news as if she were wielding a maul. That she felt the need to preface it with a disclaimer worried him.

A lot.

"I should probably start with something I never noticed," she said. "We left Redcliffe before Teagan executed Jowan. Remember, I couldn't stay and watch it done. Well. It turns out that Jowan escaped, and Teagan never saw fit to mention it to anyone. Andraste's blood, am I _ever_ going to give that man a piece of my mind when I'm in Redcliffe next."

Alistair stared at the mage. She looked back at him calmly.

Jowan.

"Kathil," he said, slowly. "_Please_ tell me that you didn't just recruit the blood mage who nearly killed my uncle into the Grey Wardens."

"Duncan always told us to use the weapons we have to hand, rather than sit around wishing for ones that might be more…honorable. Jowan cost me everything I loved, once." She leaned forward, setting her elbows on her thighs and propping her chin on her fisted hands. "And the fact of the matter is that he is good at what he does, and he has a store of knowledge that the Grey Wardens can use. I am apparently going find a crowd of mages who want to join the Wardens when I go to Amaranthine. I'm going to need experienced help to turn them battle-ready."

He tried to wrap his brain around the concept. Failed. "He's a _blood mage_. How could—"

"Since _when_ do I follow the Chantry line about what magic is and isn't all right to learn?" She stood and stalked away from him for a few steps, then turned to face him. "There are laws in the Chantry books that forbid what _I_ am as well. It just happens that the last of the arcane warriors died three hundred years ago, so the laws have been forgotten." She shook her head sharply. "I had hoped he wouldn't survive the Joining. We weren't so lucky. So now I have him on my hands."

Alistair rubbed his temples. "Cheery. You do realize that if you bring him into the palace, Isolde will explode, Eamon will try to kill him, and they'll probably both blame me, right?"

"Give me a _little_ credit. We've taken rooms near the market district. I'll keep a low profile until Cullen's Mabari is ready to leave her mother, and then we're off to visit the Tower and Redcliffe before we go to Amaranthine in the spring."

_Amaranthine_. The word sunk in now, like it hadn't before. "You're going to be Warden-General."

"Likely. Though I have a feeling it won't be quite as easy as walking in and announcing myself as such." She twisted her mouth, and touched the scar on her face with thin fingers. "You put Eamon up to asking me to step up, didn't you?"

He chuckled. "Use whatever weapons we have to hand, right? You have as much stake as I do in sending the Orlesian Grey Wardens back to where they came from. Maybe more. Besides, Kathil. You're going to be good at it."

"Because there's nothing like a mage with a knack for making unsavory friends and who has a habit of disappearing for years at a time to lead a branch of an ancient and honorable martial order," she said, her voice bladed. "Right?"

And in her voice was everything she never said, the vicious whip of the words _and I am no Duncan, am I?_

"Seems I remember we beat an Archdemon with a spy, an assassin, a murderer, a drunk, a witch, a crazy golem, a mostly-dead mage, and a secondhand Mabari," he said. "Oh, and a bastard prince and a mage who didn't know a _thing_ about stuff like, oh, not running right into the middle of a group of darkspawn."

The mage's lips twitched. "And yet, have you heard the stories they tell about us?"

"The ones where we're all so _sufferingly_ noble? I seem to recall that in a number of them you're a blushing maiden, chaste as the dawn." He cocked an eyebrow at her. "And don't forget the ones where you're twelve feet tall and eat babies for breakfast."

"I _like_ those stories," she said, and then a smile broke over her face, at last. "I'll do the best I can with what I have, Alistair. I might not live up to all the old stories, but I'm not sure anyone ever does." She came back over to her chair and dropped into it again. Her mage robes were rumpled, stained with the characteristic mottled color of darkspawn blood. "There are some other things you probably should know while I'm here."

She told him of the latest news from the Tower, and by the time she was done Alistair understood a bit better why she had ended up recruiting Jowan. He still wasn't _happy_ about it—but from the looks of things, neither was she.

"Well, if Jowan gets out of line, send him to me. I can think of a few choice names to call him," he told her. "If you've run out of ideas."

Kathil's eyes held a wicked light. "I will. Just in case I have a failure of imagination. It may be some time." She rose from her chair. "I will be around, Alistair. And I'll try not to cause _too_ much trouble in my last few weeks here."

He very _fervently_ hoped he was going to be able to hold her to that one.

* * *

_Author's note: Heh. I've been foreshadowing Jowan's return for a while now, and the reactions to him finally being on stage have been gratifying. He has a pretty specific set of roles in both the plot and in the emotional arc of the story; I don't know how long I'll keep him as a POV character, but I'm enjoying writing him for the moment. _

_Thank you all for your kind comments! Reviews keep me going. _


	11. ‘Twixt the Arms of the Dusk and the Dawn

**Eleven: 'Twixt the Arms of the Dusk and the Dawn**

**

* * *

  
**

_Kathil:_

Zevran had been right. These were _very_ close quarters.

The rooms he had found were near the market district, in a building that appeared to have once been a warehouse and now was crudely divided into apartments. Their space had a common area with a stove in one corner and three smaller rooms leading off of it. The walls were flimsy partitions, and blocked only sight, not sound. The wood of the walls was splintery and swirled with difficult knots, and every time she brushed against it, the splinters snagged and clawed at the fabric of her robes.

Had it been just her and Zevran and Cullen and Lorn, this wouldn't have been a problem. Even adding Leliana—well, she and the bard had an understanding of sorts.

But, they had Jowan.

_Ignore him._

Hard to do right now, sitting in the same room with him, book propped on her crossed legs on the makeshift chaise and the other mage across the room at a desk that had seen far better days. Possibly in the last Age.

And _this_ was familiar, seductively so, reminding her of days in the Tower when her hands had been chapped from the relentless chill and they had studied together in the library, almost unable to hear the wind whipping around the stone. _I'm so cold,_ she had complained, and Jowan had brought her tea, heated by a newly-learned spell. (A newly-learned spell that had not been _intended_ to be used for creature comforts. But one that had come in handy for years, for heating water for tea, for baths, for all those things for which warm water was needed.)

This was Denerim, it was summer, and they were surrounded by rickety wood rather than cold stone and lakewater, and there was a Mabari snoring under her chair. She closed her book. "Jowan. Would you mind very much spending the evening elsewhere?"

For a moment, he didn't move. Then he turned in his chair, hooking one arm over the back of it and setting his bearded chin on that scarred arm. "I thought you didn't want me out of your sight."

"You got along without me for four years," she told him. "I think I can trust you for a night."

He gave her a long look, his sharp, dark brows gathering together slightly. "And just what will you be doing tonight that requires my absence?"

"_None_ of your business, Jowan."

"And you're blushing." He quirked the corner of his mouth. "Both of them, Kathil? Really?"

Kathil glared daggers at him. "What part of _it doesn't concern you_ did you not understand? My personal life isn't open for discussion."

Jowan shook his head. "You're right. Maker _forbid_ that I have some curiosity as to what an old friend is doing with her life, or after two weeks of being around her I notice a thing or three that make me wonder just what madness she's up to this time. I will absent myself tonight. Warden." He stood up all at once and walked toward the room they had given him.

She bit back a retort and let him go.

Andraste's little apples, this was harder than she had thought it would be. It had been two weeks of uncomfortable silences, Leliana's frowns, Cullen's suspicion, and she had thought that it was going to get better but instead the silence had settled over all of them like ice. She had an urge to cut him loose, send him to Amaranthine on his own, threaten him to within an inch of his life and maybe send with him a note that said _keep an eye on him_.

She didn't. She _couldn't_. He was her responsibility, now. Maybe always had been.

And there was always the uncomfortable possibility lurking that if things had just been a little different, if she'd been the one to fall in love with a Chantry sister (_or a Templar_) and be threatened with being made Tranquil and come up with the _entirely_ daft idea of destroying her phylactery—

Maybe Jowan would have been the one sitting here wondering what precisely he was going to do with her and she'd be the blood mage newly turned Grey Warden.

She was going to have to find a way to live with him, because she _really_ did not want him out there doing Maker knew what, and with the way that the Orlesian Grey Wardens had treated _her_ there was no way that just sending Jowan to Amaranthine was going to end well.

Cullen, Zevran, and Lorn were gone—Cullen and Lorn to the palace kennels, Zevran to dance attendance on the Princess Consort with Leliana for the afternoon. None of them would be back for at least another hour. Kathil got up, setting her book down on the chair she'd just vacated.

She steeled herself, and went to knock on Jowan's splintered door.

*****

_Jowan:_

He had little in the way of illusions about his place in the world.

Silence had a way of miring people in place like mud freezing around the feet of a wanderer. It was like to drive him mad, that after the years filled largely with solitude he now had people and somewhere he ostensibly belonged, and it was all he could do to stay in one place.

Kathil had changed, since the Tower. He'd still recognized her, when he'd seen her in Redcliffe; there had been a familiar stubbornness in her tempered with exhaustion, and he could still almost predict the words that came out of her mouth when he saw her.

This woman, though. This pale-haired Grey Warden, he knew very little of.

He was throwing a few things in a bag when the knock came, intending to go into Denerim and see if he could find a place to study uninterrupted. "Come," he called, turning towards the door.

It swung open to reveal Kathil on the other side.

_Maker, what _now?

It took her a moment to speak. "You have just _rotten_ luck, don't you, Jowan?" she asked, her tone clipped.

He frowned, taken aback. "I've never had it put quite that way—"

"Anyone else would have had their best friend try to talk them _out_ of destroying their phylactery. Or maybe escaped the basement before everyone arrived to meet us there." She shook her head. "And in another world, maybe doing what Loghain wanted would have been the _right_ thing to do, and Connor wouldn't have gotten into your books. And _maybe_ the one person you would have made friends with when you ran wouldn't have been the Witch of the _Wilds_."

"She wasn't—"

But Kathil scowled at him. "She _was_. And just in case you're wondering, Jowan, I _sodding_ killed her, because her daughter was someone I liked in spite of it being an entirely stupid idea for me to trust her as far as I could spit her. Not that I think Flemeth is actually dead. It takes more than a sword through the neck to kill someone like her. The point is I am probably, at some point, going to yell at you and throw things. But right now, I am sick of…_this_. We're stuck with each other for the moment. I've been acting like an ass."

And _this_ was familiar, Kathil thawing like springtime smashing into Lake Calenhad, the ice protesting with mighty shrieks and cracks before it gave up its grip. He blinked and got a hold on himself. "You—wait. You killed Flemeth?"

"Well. It was my idea. If I recall correctly, Alistair struck the death blow." She wrinkled her nose. "It's a long story. The short version is that her daughter Morrigan was a friend of mine, and found out that Mama was planning to take Morrigan's body for her own. She asked me to kill Flemeth for her. I obliged. I'd say I was sorry, but I'm not."

The old woman had been cracked as a glass, but she had been a friend. He'd mourned her death, thinking he was the only one that even knew she was gone. But that her killer had been Kathil, sent by the daughter that Flemeth had spoken so fondly of…

_My perfect creature, my purest creation,_ the shapechanger had crooned. _My flower of the Wilds, my thorns, my claws. You would like her, Jowan, were you ever to meet her._

She'd known death was coming for her.

_Not that I think Flemeth is actually dead._

It was entirely possible that there was a look of horror on his face. At least, that was what he gathered from Kathil's reaction. She was stepping backward, looking concerned. "You _do_ realize that she knew you were coming, and that if she was there to meet you, apparently meeting her end at your blades probably played into some plan she had?" he said.

"I am reasonably sure that what we killed was actually a dragon forced into Flemeth's form," Kathil said. "Or maybe that was Flemeth's body, but her soul was already…elsewhere. Hard to tell. And _yes_, before you ask, I am quite aware that there are going to be consequences. Possibly world-dooming ones."

The Veil was trembling. Jowan took a sharp breath. "We should continue this conversation—later." _Much later. Maybe never._

He saw the hard look that closed Kathil's features as she turned and walked silently away. A few heartbeats later, he heard the door of their shared quarters open and close again. He counted to twenty to let her get out of the building, and then followed suit.

_The hero of _sodding_ Ferelden._

He'd thought, finding her, that she might give him a chance to atone for his crimes. To live in repentance, use his power to do something useful. He'd heard stories about her, how she'd stood beside the King, how she'd taken the final blow on the Archdemon herself. How she'd united the country, stood in the Landsmeet and exposed Loghain's treachery.

The truth of her was something quite different.

He could almost wish for the miring silence back. At least, ignorant of the fact that Flemeth had evidently been the infamous Witch of the Wilds _and_ that Kathil had killed her, he could hope that the ice between him and his fellow mage would thaw one of these days.

As he walked out into the sun-drenched street, there was a strange feeling tightening his chest. It was not anger, not precisely. Something like dismay, and disappointment. He'd been so _proud_ of her. Instead of sitting in the Tower for the rest of her days, she'd gone out and done something about the Blight.

She was a hero. Unlike _him._

And in the four years since they had been apprentices in the Tower together, she had changed into someone he barely recognized—and who he did not like.

It was probably for the best. She was his commander. Eventually, they would travel to Amaranthine, and he'd be able to lose himself in turning a bunch of Tower-trained academics into battle mages. He could forget about her sleeping with the assassin _and_ Cullen (though she'd been friends with Cullen at the Tower, and Jowan had always known that _something_ was going to happen between them some day, a traitorous part of his mind whispered). He just had to get through the next few months.

Until then—

He would endure. And survive.

*****

_Lorn:_

It is strange, that his human is not here.

He and his human's dust-knight have been spending a pleasant afternoon teaching the pup about things, when to growl and when to bow. They are no longer denning in the great stone place; when they returned from their darkspawn hunt, they moved dens to a smaller wooden place, except for the singer.

They appear to have added a new pack member, the mage who smells of copper and mouse and now a bit like darkspawn blood, like what the two-legs term _sin_. Like hunger. Like his human, her dust-knight, the other knight.

Nobody _likes_ the mouse-mage, and his human has not been able to adequately explain why he has joined their pack. When his human looks at the mouse-mage, she smells like steel. Now he and the dust-knight have returned from their afternoon spent with the pup, and neither his human nor the mouse-mage are here, though they were both here recently and the sour smell of unhappiness permeates their den.

He snuffles around, and the dust-knight is frowning. "Maybe they went to get something to eat?"

Lorn growls. They left separately. He catches his human's trail by the door, and puts his nose to the ground. The dust-knight follows, and Lorn allows him.

It is _hard_ to track people, in this warren of human dens. There are all sorts of scents that overwhelm and distract the nose—hot-fired metal, offal, baking bread, rot, sweat. But Lorn knows his human and knows her habits. She brushes her hand against the corners of buildings right at his nose-height, intentionally leaving a trail for him to follow. He trained her for a long time on that.

He loses her trail and finds it again. They are going away from the place where humans from different packs meet and touch hands and give each other things, and towards places he is less familiar with, but that he still remembers.

They cross many tiny territories; smaller dogs come out to challenge him but flatten their ears when they see him, mostly. Then the air starts to smell familiar. Perfume and smoke, and he _remembers_! He breaks into a trot, and the dust-knight jogs to keep up. It is _that_ place, the place with all of the ladies, and the _cakes_!

The door is propped open, and he lopes inside. He pauses—ah there, in the corner! His human!

She is sitting at a table, her chin propped in her hands. Lorn goes to her and puts his head in her lap. Is he not a good dog? He _found_ her!

"You are, and clever," she says in a low voice, and drops a hand down to stroke his head.

Lorn wags enthusiastically. Why is she sad? He has found her, there is no reason to be sad!

His human looks down at Lorn, and abruptly seems to _see_ him, as if he had been covered in a shroud of unseeing before. Then she looks up and sees the dust-knight. "Maker's Breath, what time is it?" she asks. "I hadn't intended to be gone long. I'm sorry, you two."

The dust-knight sits down across from Lorn's human. Lorn licks his human's hand, and tastes salt. "And just what led you here?" the dust-knight asks. A lady walks by the table, trailing perfume. Lorn perks up, but there are no cakes forthcoming.

"The food is good, and they get in Antivan wine," his human says. "And I figured that there was no way Jowan would know to look for me here, even if he wanted to." Her fingers curl and trace the side of his muzzle, and he allows this because she is his human and there is nothing he does not allow her.

"It's—"

"I know what it is, Cullen. Before you ask, yes I have taken advantage of all the Pearl has to offer before, and no, I had no designs upon doing so today. Just finding a place where I could have a glass of wine and where nobody would bother me."

Footsteps approach, and Lorn lifts his head. It is the alpha of the territory they are on, a woman with swishy skirts and beneath them, bare feet. She smells of musk and rain-wet leaves. "Can I get you anything?"

"Another glass of wine, watered as usual, and some of the almond cakes for the warhound, if there are any," his human says. "Cullen, do you want anything? The wine really is very good, and _you_ don't have to water yours."

The dust-knight makes a murmur and all is arranged, and a few minutes later his human is giving him little cakes, one at a time. They are sweet and wonderful, a bit different than he remembers, but still good. The alpha has brought him a big bowl of water, which he appreciates as well. His human and her dust-knight are talking. There was a tussle with the mouse-mage, he understands. Not a contest for dominance, but a surfacing of the silent snarls in them both. It would be foolish for the mouse-mage to challenge his human; she is fiercer by far than he is. Still, they circle each other, hackles raised.

Lorn understands this. What he does not understand is why she has not yet torn out the mouse-mage's throat.

"Because I will need him," she says, and feeds Lorn another cake. She is speaking both to Lorn and to the dust-knight. "We'll need him at the Tower, and the Grey Wardens should have access to all kinds of magic, not just the ones the Chantry approves of. And I know you don't believe me, Cullen, but his heart...well, it's at least in the vicinity of the right place. The general neighborhood, at least."

"Were you ever...involved?" the dust-knight asks. "Back in the Tower?"

His human gives a surprised bark of a laugh. "Oh sweet Andraste, _no_. I've never had any desire to see him naked, and the feeling is mutual. We were best friends, and I had Sati and he had a series of crushes on the older mages. And then Lily, but he didn't tell me about her until he was more or less forced into it. He was the closest thing I had to a brother. To a family."

Her hand is on Lorn's head again, and he puts his head on her lap. She strokes his ears. She has always longed for a pack, his human; when their excellent pack broke apart after the day of shattered stone, something in his human broke too. It has been healing, slow, like cracked ribs. More quickly now that she has been gathering a pack around her again, with her elf and her dust-knight and the singer and always, always Lorn.

Pack and territory are not always simple, among the two-legged. Sometimes they are a tangled thing, like the human word _complicated_. He will have to explain that to Fiann, soon. But now, he can feel his human relaxing, and her voice is losing the edge of sadness and the smell of her is beginning to go a little warmer.

She feeds him the last of the cakes and then they are leaving, and walking, back to their wooden den. The shadows are getting long, and the crows are flying, returning to their roosts. The smells of cooking food mix with the other smells of this human place.

Soon there will be dinner, and then there will be sleeping and the guarding of it, and all is well.

*****

_Cullen:_

Antivan wine was delicious, but it went to the head _very_ quickly.

Cullen rather suspected that was one thing that the people of Antiva had in common with the intoxicants that they exported. Finishing his cup at the Pearl (rather too quickly, especially after Kathil mentioned that they had an whole evening ahead of them without Jowan's ears to offend) left him a bit on the head-buzzing side. He was better once they got back to the rooms, if they could be termed such.

Zevran was there already, and he'd brought supper with him. They made a picnic of it, passing around a dark crumbling bread, cheese for the bread, and slices of barely-warm roasted beef on the floor of the central room. When Cullen mentioned that Lorn had tracked Kathil to the Pearl earlier that day, Zevran raised an eyebrow and made a remark about the sorts of things Kathil liked at the Pearl, to which Kathil retorted, "I only told her to surprise me the _once_—"

And they were all laughing, and Zevran was teasing the mage fondly, and fortunately it seemed that Kathil's mood from earlier had entirely dissipated. After they had mostly finished eating, with Lorn guarding the door, the mage grabbed Cullen's hand and pulled him over to where she was sitting, and kissed him soundly, And then she kissed Zevran.

Things rather devolved from there, delightfully so, and Cullen felt the light-headed feeling of too much wine coming over him again, because he hadn't forgotten that afternoon several weeks ago when he'd ended up in bed with both of them, or dancing with Zevran at the masque, or the glances he and the elf have been giving each other ever since.

There just hadn't been time or privacy to _do_ anything about it.

Now, there was.

They began as before with Kathil between them, only this time _all_ of them gradually shed their clothes, and though Cullen had seen the patterns in scar on Zevran's back and chest before, the extent of the scarring always surprised him. Just like the terrible scarring that pitted the flesh on Kathil's shoulder was a part of her, the scars were a part of Zevran. And--a surprise--he had _tattoos_ in places that made Cullen wince to think about the process of getting them, though they did show off certain lines very well.

Both of their hands played over Kathil's skin, and she stretched, arching her back in appreciation. "I think," she murmured, "that it is Cullen's turn to be in the middle."

And just like _that—_

There are things he thought of many times, in the darkness of the Chantry orphanage and then in the Templar barracks in the Tower, things he never quite got up the nerve to do anything about. (And Templars were supposed to reserve _that_ sort of expression of love for the Maker himself, though Cullen had always heard rumors about what happened on the road, when the Templars were sent to hunt down mages. The stories never ended well.) And _had_ he summoned the courage, the last man he'd have expected to end up in bed with would be an Antivan assassin.

But once he'd gotten over that (and it did not take so very long at all), he found himself _more_ than enthusiastic about the whole thing. There was Kathil on one side, familiar cool skin warming where it touched his, and on the other side Zevran, who burned against him as if with fever.

And _both_ of them were doing things that made Cullen press himself against their hands and mouths, uttering things that might have been some utterly blasphemous prayers. "Hold still a moment," Zevran said into his ear, and the elf's warm hands were sliding down Cullen's sweat-slick skin, down to his thighs, and then Zevran was kissing him as his hand started doing something quite _amazing_—

Cullen completely stopped thinking.

Somehow, they managed to get themselves into Kathil and Zevran's bedroom and piled into a bed that would hold all three of them, barely. The sun was down at last, the brief summer night beginning, and they were playful as puppies together, twisting around each other, kissing here, licking there, Kathil pressed against his back as Cullen discovered that there were some _very_ good things about bedding men that he'd never thought of, especially a man as flexible as Zevran.

They eventually collapsed into a panting, quivering pile, limbs intertwined. "Zev, you're on my hair," he heard Kathil say, and they shifted a bit to free the mage from her accidental entrapment. "I think we need a bigger bed. Damn Jowan, anyway."

Zevran moved a little, and his hand on Cullen's shoulder tightened. "The night is _far_ too pleasant to admit any such thoughts, my Grey Warden," he said, his voice low.

"Mmm. True." The mage stretched; she had ended up with one leg draped over Cullen's hip and the other hooked around Zevran's knee. "You going to distract me from them?"

Cullen lifted his head and kissed the sensitive skin just below the mage's ear. He breathed in, and she smelled of starlight and salt. "Feeling neglected, dear?"

"Never," she said, and there was a purring tremble in her voice. "But I would not refuse distraction if it were offered—ah!" She broke off with a gasp as Zevran moved a little and freed a hand which immediately went to work on her.

There was hunger in all of them, even in Zevran who was not a Warden but seemed to know how that hunger could tear, how need could be a shattered glass in the chest and gut. The mage surfaced and submerged under that need, the fingers of one hand digging into Cullen's skin, and Zevran was within her, Cullen beside them, and one day there was an idea that they would try but right now it was _more_ than enough to simply be there, to feel what passed between the two of them.

She cried out, full-throated, and the Veil began to tatter.

Gently, swiftly, Cullen gathered his will and strengthened the Veil, the static sparks on her skin dimming and extinguishing. He had been practicing using his Templar training

in ways that he'd never been taught, and he was gratified to see that though Kathil's breath hitched a little--she'd felt what he'd done--it didn't seem to be upsetting or distracting to her.

Not that much was going to distract her, just now.

He stopped thinking, and just enjoyed the moment. The morning would come soon enough, and there was time enough to borrow trouble then.

*****

_Leliana:_

A man who was not precisely a man once asked her, _do you believe yourself an equal to Andraste?_

Of course not.

Yet--

She had dreamed of a knight made of dust, and a mouse with fur the color of blood, and sometimes she doubted and other times she believed.

This was one of the former times.

She sat in the outer chamber of the Denerim rectory, watching Chantry priests and Templars come and go, and idly thought about telling them about the maleficar who had just joined the Grey Wardens. If they acted decisively, they might be able to take Jowan down before Kathil discovered what was happening and came roaring to his rescue. A priest, the hem of her robe dragging the ground, came past with a censer that was trickling fragrant smoke.

Blood mages were one thing. Blood mages who poisoned a man and gave his son the means to call a petty demon with large ambitions to this world, a demon who had turned a good man into a jesting puppet, who had killed so very many people. Who had given a family the means to prolong the suffering involved with sending a beloved child away to the Tower for years. Who had, if the story Kathil told was correct, gotten a priest-candidate whose only sin was falling in love with a mage sent to one of the most terrible places the Maker's good earth owned.

She had certain _opinions_ about those who used love--real love--as a weapon, and Jowan was one of those.

There were only two weeks until she would depart for Orlais once more, to try to hunt down the one who had commissioned the _jeu_ that had gone so very badly this summer. She would likely be in Tevinter by the time the snow flew in Denerim. Though she hated to abandon Kathil at a time when the mage was likely going to need her, she thought Kathil could probably handle the Circle on her own. Leliana would be back in Ferelden by the spring, hopefully early enough to meet her in Redcliffe before they went to Amaranthine.

If all went well, that was. She was a sundowner; one could spend years chasing rumors spread by one of her own.

The Revered Mother walked by, and nodded to Leliana. She nodded back, and did not speak.

She knew the moment that the King arrived in the small courtyard outside the rectory. Alistair was _not_ a subtle man. He had once arrived into every room with a crash of armor and a rattle of swords; now everywhere he went there was a certain murmur following him, deference and attempted helpfulness and perhaps a little avarice. It was the song of a court, a song of royalty, and what in Thedas was Alistair _doing_ here?

That question was answered a moment later, when the King dropped down on the bench next to Leliana. "It's like having a flock of birds twittering everywhere I go," he said. He raised his voice. "Out. All of you. _Now_."

The cloud of sisters both lay and sworn paused, and then scurried away. The Templars followed, and Alistair finally waved his guards away as well. Emris was the last to leave, shutting the door of the rectory behind him.

"You _do_ make a fuss, Alistair," Leliana observed. "You couldn't have spoken to me in the palace?"

"Privileges of the crown," he said, and shrugged. "I have to make a fuss every once in a while. Makes people think I'm doing my job. Besides. There are only a couple of places in this damned city where I know there aren't any ears to overhear. My study, and here, in the rectory. There aren't even any mice in the walls here. So. I need to know, Leliana. What do the Orlesians have planned?"

"It is not Orlais you should be worried about, Alistair," she said, her voice quiet and absolute. She had known this conversation was coming. "Orlais is an eagle. She screams and flaps and stoops on her prey, but Ferelden has proven to be a bit too much for her to take down. But Tevinter, now, Tevinter is a fox, a hare, a coiled snake in the long grass. Tevinter is patient, waiting in his rotted shell, peeking out every once in a while to see if things have changed enough for him to begin to slip out and begin to arrange things to his liking. He stirs now."

"Tevinter is too worried about the qunari to think about the rest of the world. You know, come join us in our fanatical devotion to exterminating the heretics, we have cookies. So it's said. "

"Conventional wisdom is so…conventional." She quirked her mouth at him. "Quiet foxes make for bad enemies, Alistair. I am going to Orlais, and from there to Tevinter to find the one who commissioned the _jeu_. I will find out where the fox's eyes are falling."

Alistair's eyes narrowed. "What aren't you telling me, Leliana?"

"Little me?" she asked, all innocence. "I am honesty itself."

He snorted. "And I am Andraste's pretty panties."

"And you have such lovely frills, no?" She tilted her head and patted his shoulder. "I am not _your_ spy, Alistair. Our interests usually coincide, but you know better than to push me."

He let out an explosive breath. "I hate it when you pull that on me, you know. All mysterious and bard-y."

"I do what I must," Leliana told him. "I'll drop by next summer, yes? And we will chat then." She rose. Alistair stayed seated.

"One more question," he said. "You went with Kathil out to do the Joining with Jowan. What do you think of him?"

She breathed out. "I think he is a manipulative, cowardly man who cannot see beyond the end of his own nose, who thinks that he can somehow be saved. Maybe being a Grey Warden will be good for him, but maybe not."

"Kathil loves him." It was not in any way a question.

"And hates him just as much as she loves him. She is going to need him." Leliana shook her head. "I don't like him, Alistair. But I dreamed about a mouse with blooded fur, and a knight made out of dust. They're both a part of her. Jowan and Cullen."

"Maleficar and Templar." Alistair shook his head. "Well, I wish her luck. _Away_ from Denerim."

"And possibly where a few less people are in the line of fire." She smiled. "I should go. Go appease your guards, who are probably imagining terrible things."

"Maker's Balls, do I _have_ to?" But the plaintive tone in his voice was undercut but a bit of slyness. "I'll see you before you leave."

"Always, Alistair." She slipped out of the side door as her old friend the King rose and turned toward the rectory doors.

There were times she doubted and times she believed, and this was one of the latter.

_For in Your infinite love  
and your unending wisdom, o Maker,  
you have given unto us a woman like no other,  
Your Andraste, Your mortal wife. _

_Andraste in your compassion, defend us.  
We take up arms in your name,  
and your divine words caress our lips,  
the first sunrise of a world new-born._

_

* * *

_

_Author's Note:_

_I apologize for the long delay between the last chapter and this one—I'm alternating writing this and another project, so it'll continue to be about a week or so between chapters, likely. For those who like visual references, check my profile for a picture of a (younger!) Kathil._

_Thank you to all for reading! _


	12. The Hearts of Those Just Passing Through

**Chapter Twelve: The Hearts of Those Just Passing Through**

**

* * *

  
**

_Jowan:_

The dreams came with icy fingers, wrapping around his throat and his heart.

_Darkness so deep that the sullen light from the molten rock was the blazing heart of a star, fierce heat, the smell of organic rot and of the fumes rising from the melted stone. Moving. All of them moving—to the surface, to where the wind blew cold, to where _life_ choked every surface. Hunger, constant hunger._

_And the call._

_So thin, so sweet, it called and they moved toward it, digging digging digging, it loves us it needs us we will free it it will not fall we must have it we must we must—_

_The flesh-things screamed. Feed them. Feed them our blood, our bones, use them use them, choose one to become, as they all must become, to become the Great and the Sacred and the Beautiful, down here in the heated tunneled darkness of the stone. Mother is a sweet madness, Mother is all around, Mother is the word for the Sacred and they must worship, all must worship, all—_

Wrenching himself out of the dream, Jowan sat straight up in his bed, drenched with sweat that had nothing to do with the sultry late summer air. It took a long few minutes for his heartbeat to stop racing, to shake off the madness that seemed to cling to him. _Just a dream._

But even when he had first begun to study forbidden magic in the Tower, the dreams of blood had not left him feeling this—_filthy_. His skin crawled.

He forced himself to get up and pull on some clothing. He scratched at his beard after he pulled on his shirt, then sighed and opened the door of his room, moving quietly. He didn't know what he was going to do, but all he knew was that he needed to be _out_. He could take a walk; there were brothels where he could spend a pair of silver for a bath, even if he didn't intend to partake of the company.

But rather than the quiet darkness he expected in the main room of the rickety apartment, there was a soft light next to the window. Kathil sat in a chair, a silent, violet-tinged light dancing over her knuckles. Her eyes were intent on the image that the light was creating: a dragon, steel scales shining, changing shape to a woman whose long hair wrapped around her like a cloak, obscuring all but a few curves, her face hidden in her hands. "Bad dreams?" she asked, not taking her gaze off of the little illusion she held in her hands.

"You warned me about them, but...I feel so—"

"Like all you are has been stained irrevocably?" She raised one hand a little, made an adjustment to her image. "Like there's dirt ground into your soul?"

He nodded in recognition and went to claim the other chair, sitting down gingerly. "You did warn me."

"It gets better," she said. "I only have the dreams a few times a season now." Kathil still wasn't looking at him, and the peace between them felt as fragile as the hour before dawn. "Before the Archdemon died, I was dreaming every night." She frowned critically at her little image. "It's still not quite right."

"What is it for?" he asked before he could stop himself. "The image, I mean."

She finally lifted her gaze to meet his eyes. "It's not _for_ anything. Sometimes, I like to think there are things in the world that exist just because they're pretty, or they make people laugh." She returned her attention to the image. "I was dreaming, too. Cullen doesn't have as much trouble with the dreams as most. I think it's got something to do with his lyrium habit. I didn't want to wake him, so I got up." She glanced at him sidelong. "If both of us are dreaming, it probably means there's a darkspawn cell approaching Denerim. We should be prepared for trouble on the road."

He nodded, and the two of them fell into silence for a few minutes. Jowan's sense of being covered in filth was beginning to subside, though his stomach was twisting with hunger and that strange dismay he always felt when he got too close to his old friend. He watched the little dragon in her hands shake out its wings, opening its mouth in a silent roar. Then it was a woman once more, her long hair spreading over her crouched body , every line etched in suffering. Dragon, woman, dragon; he thought there might be a message there but damned if he could understand it.

So many questions. Too many questions. _What happened to you, Kathil?_

Her head jerked up, and he realized with a twist of his heart that he'd just spoken aloud.

Just for an instant, she was vulnerable, a look in her eyes that stripped his soul bare. Then pain crashed in, and she turned her face away from him. "You are not the only one who has—transgressed." Her voice was cold. "We survive, you and I." She closed her hands around the illusion, extinguishing its light.

She was a pale shape in the darkness as she rose and crossed the room. Without another word, she vanished into Cullen's room, leaving Jowan alone.

For a moment, he simply sat in the silence she left behind. Then he gestured at the lamp and a spark flew from his fingertips, lighting the wick. Tomorrow, they would leave for the Tower. Maybe after whatever might be done about that mess had been accomplished and Irving and Greagoir had finished having entire litters of kittens about outside interference in their affairs, he'd be able to convince Kathil to let him go ahead to Amaranthine instead of whatever else she had planned for the winter. There were a few places in Ferelden that it was unwise for him to spend much time near, and he'd overheard her mention Redcliffe when she'd been discussing travel plans. If she were planning on spending the winter there, it would be prudent for him to be elsewhere.

Blood sang its song in his ears, and he gathered his will, steeling himself and forcing his attention away from it. Tomorrow would come, and perhaps in the Tower he would find a piece of what he sought. Maybe this was some strange penance he was serving, forced to watch how unpleasant and twisted his fellow mage, the woman he had thought of as a hero, had become.

Maybe this was one of the laws of power, how it changed everything it touched.

He would witness, and remember.

*****

_Kathil:_

Some day, she would live somewhere where she could own more possessions than she could fit into a pack.

That day was not today, though. She rolled up the set of formal mage robes she'd been getting a lot of wear out of this summer, and fitted it into the side of her pack atop the books and notes she was taking with her to the Tower and then to Amaranthine. Packing like this was second nature at this point; not counting the months she had spent in the Tower, she had been on the road for four years now. Everything in her packs had a place and a purpose.

"Are you almost done, little bird?" she heard Zevran ask from across the room, where he was buckling shut his own pack. "Or will you need to unpack and repack a few more times?"

Kathil grabbed the last few things from the cupboard—the box that held her writing implements and her very few sentimental possessions—and stashed it at the top of the pack. "Done, done," she said. "I could probably pack everything a little bit better, but it'll do for now."

"One would almost think you did not wish to leave. " He smiled at her, and his voice was gently teasing. "Not looking forward to what you're going to find in the Tower?"

She grimaced. "Not especially. But it'll do us all good to get out of Denerim." It had been a tense few weeks, harboring Jowan as a secret among them. Kathil could scarcely believe that they had managed to get this far without his presence being uncovered. There were only a few more hours left before they could leave Denerim behind.

_Soon._

"Let's go up to the palace," she said. "We have to come back to get Jowan anyway, and Cullen's already up there." She was startled to hear her voice trembling.

It was just so _strange_ that the summer was over and it was time to leave. Despite everything, they had achieved a fragile sort of peace in the last few weeks. She and Jowan ignored each other as much as they could. Her arrangement with Zevran and Cullen continued to grow and change; the three of them ended up in bed together every few days, and she continued to see them both separately as well. Kathil tried to stay out of politics as much as she could, and the nobles had largely turned their attention toward preparing to finish out the season and mostly elected to leave her alone. Even Rima was being—well, not pleasant, but at least civil. There had been no more ambushes.

Zevran was behind her, putting his arms around her and pulling her to his chest. "Will you miss this place?" he asked.

She closed her eyes and let herself take comfort in his presence. "A little," she said. "But it's time for us to be gone." She wriggled in his arms, and turned so she could kiss him, letting her lips linger on his. "Let's go before I get distracted, Zev."

He chuckled and let her go, and together they left, heading for the palace. They guards waved the two of them past the gates, and through to the Hall of the Landsmeet, where Alistair and Rima were currently holding one of the last full courts of the summer.

Kathil felt a bit underdressed as they slipped through the crowd; in their functional but drab traveling clothes, the nobles in their bright colors outshone them easily. She nodded to many people as they worked their way to the front in search of Leliana; Eamon and Isolde were standing on one of the two high platforms that ran down either side of the hall.

They found Leliana near the front of that platform, watching the King and Princess Consort speak to each noble in turn. Kathil slipped her body under the bard's arm, rubbing her cheek against Leliana's shoulder like a cat. "I am going to miss you," she said. "Lei, are you sure you won't come with us?"

"I must be elsewhere, dearest, and Felelden is bad enough without snow all over everything," Leliana said fondly. "Zevran, you must take care of her, yes?"

"All that is within my power," Zevran said, and smiled. There was humor glinting in his eyes; he seemed to be glad that the day of departure had finally arrived. "Little bird, I believe you wanted a private word with Leliana? Or she wanted one with you."

"After you say goodbye to Alistair," Leliana said. "Go, Kathil. Meet me by the bailey when you're done." She squeezed Kathil gently and let her go.

"After you," Zevran said, gesturing.

Kathil quirked her mouth. "We go together, I think." She took his hand, entangling their fingers together. After a few months of these courts, she knew exactly how it worked—you caught the eye of the seneschal and he subtly directed you to a place in what might be called a line. Then, when your turn was up, he nodded to you and you proceeded.

But, really, had she _ever_ gotten anything done by playing by the rules?

She waved at Alistair and came forward; she could tell that he was almost done speaking with the bann who had held his ear for the last quarter hour. "I apologize for interrupting, Bann Diarmid, but I have a matter of some urgency I need to discuss with their Majesties," she said, smiling at the man.

Diarmid, to his credit, agreed with a minimum of spluttering. "I actually just wanted to say goodbye," Kathil said to Alistair and Rima, pitching her voice low. "We're going to be leaving as soon as we can collect everyone together. I'll write when we get to Amaranthine."

Both monarchs nodded. Rima, Kathil noticed, had dark circles under her eyes, as if she hadn't been sleeping. "You'd better," Alistair said. "I expect the news from Amaranthine will be fascinating." He sat back a little and surveyed both of them. "Take care of yourselves, both of you, and that goes for Warden Cullen as well. And Lorn, and—Fiann? That is Cullen's Mabari, yes? Where _are_ Cullen and the dogs, anyway?"

"Lorn is saying goodbye to Yvrenne," Kathil said. "Cullen is getting some last things from the kennel. The Tranquil who is going to the Tower with us is getting his dogs ready to travel. You may wish to increase the guard on Denerim's gates, Alistair. I believe there may be a darkspawn cell getting close."

"You always have the best news for me," Alistair said, the smile on his face belying his grousing tone. "Are you sure you don't want to take some men with you?"

"We'll be fine." She smiled at him, and at Rima, who was watching the two of them with a carefully neutral expression. "Thank you for your hospitality, both of you." She tightened her hand on Zevran's, and he moved just a little closer to her.

"Just don't go disappearing on us again, Kathil." Alistair fixed her with a look that might have been stern on any other face, but on him came off as mildly annoyed. "I mean it."

She fought the urge to roll her eyes. "I won't. I don't think Zevran or Cullen would let me, and I have...responsibilities that won't allow me to go running off."

Now Rima's gaze sharpened, and _her_ stern look was much more effective than Alistair's. "Speaking of that responsibility, you _will_ keep a very close watch on it, won't you?"

"With both eyes, you Majesty." _I am not a _complete _incompetent, Princess Consort._ But she did not say those words aloud; referring to Jowan in this mixed company at all was dangerous, and Kathil was very aware of Eamon and Isolde standing in the room. "All of us will."

They exchanged a few more awkward words, and finally she and Zevran bowed and took their leave. As they passed the high platform that the Guerrins were standing on, Kathil looked up at them. Isolde was gripping her husband's arm tightly. Eamon looked down on her and Zevran, and there was something cold in the way he held his mouth and how straight his back was. The old wolf stood ready for battle.

_They know._

She nodded to the pair on the platform and quickened her stride, her mouth gone abruptly dry. "We'd better get out of Denerim before Eamon comes looking for us," she said to Zevran, keeping her voice low. "I can't imagine a chat between us will go very well right now."

Zevran chuckled. "Likely. Though I am sure it would be interesting to see whether or not he would actually try to kill you."

"Let's avoid the question altogether, shall we?" They reached the doors of the Hall of the Landsmeet, and passed through. "Maker's _Balls_. I had really hoped to make it out without Eamon finding out." She heard a familiar bark from down the hallway. "Sounds like Lorn is ready to go, at least. Do you have any idea what Leliana wanted to talk to me about?"

"Not a clue, my Grey Warden." But there was trouble lurking under Zevran's cheerful mien, and Kathil had the strange feeling that there was a storm about to break. He shook his head slightly, and she closed her mouth on any further questions. There were too many ears around, and not all of them friendly; and even those that were friendly could be dangerous.

When they reached the outer courtyard, it was full of what seemed like a thundering herd of Mabari. At least, it _smelled_ like a thundering herd of Mabari. It was actually five adult dogs and Fiann, who capered among them, leaping at stubby tails and play-bowing to all and sundry. Lorn came up to Kathil, head held high. They were going? Going _now_?

"In a moment," she told him. "Where is Leliana? I thought she was going to meet us here."

Lorn cocked his head. The singer had gone. She had promised to bring back biscuits. _Lots_ of biscuits.

"Don't ask me," Cullen said. "She said there was something—Fiann! _No!_ Put that _down!_" He took off after the puppy, who had grabbed a bow someone had left leaning against the wall and was running away with it. The Tranquil who would be traveling with him, a man by the name of Shaw, watched from the center of the courtyard with emotionless eyes. Kathil fought not to shudder. She had never been easy with the Tranquil. The Templars were fierce and forbidding and deadly, but they were human. The Tranquil were the stuff of nightmares.

Lorn leaned against her legs, and she scratched him behind the ears. Zevran slung an arm around her shoulders, and she turned her face into his neck, breathing in his comforting, familiar scent. "I believe I'll take the liberty of convincing the kitchens to provide us with a meal before we leave," he said. "Our Chantry mouse should be back from her errand soon."

"You," she said, suspicion coloring her voice, "know more than you are telling."

His hand came up and slid along her jaw, lifting her chin so he could kiss her. "And when do I not, my Grey Warden?" he asked. "I will be only a moment. Try not to let the puppy tear down the palace while I am gone, yes?"

He kissed her again and then departed, heading toward the kitchen. Kathil sighed, the feeling of time slipping away nagging at her. Spend too much longer here and she would have Eamon in the courtyard with her, asking questions that she really did not want to have to answer.

She stepped into the center of the seething mass of Mabari, Lorn at her side. The other warhounds gave way to her and Lorn; evidently, the pack order had already been worked out. They would be able to leave soon.

And if she were lucky, she would not have to explain to a man she still thought of as a friend why she was harboring the person who had nearly destroyed him.

*****

_Leliana:_

It was so easy to slip into the rundown building that her friends had called home for a few weeks without being either seen or heard.

So easy to slip up behind one shaggy-haired blood mage with his back turned toward the door.

So _very_ easy to place a blade against his throat.

"I would like you to remember this moment," she said to Jowan as he stiffened, his breath hissing in. "Remember that there is _always_ someone quieter than you, faster than you, and more willing to do violence to you than you are to them. Today, Jowan, that someone is me. If you move, or start to cast a spell, you will die. Understand?"

He nodded shallowly. "What—what do you want, Leliana?"

"I want you to listen to me, yes?" she said. She did not bother to blunt the sharp edge of her voice. "I know you. I have seen your kind before."

"Blood mages? We aren't all alike—"

She chuckled. "No. Selfish young men who think that there is a woman out there who will redeem them. Who will do so very _many_ terrible things while they are waiting for her to come along and repair them and what they have broken." She felt him take a breath. "Do not argue with the woman who has a blade to your throat, Jowan. That is not what I wanted to talk to you about. I know you and Kathil have not been getting along. I wanted to make very clear the consequences of hurting her. Do any more damage than has already been done, and there is nowhere you can hide from me. Phylactery or no, I will hunt you down, and I will end your miserable life. Understand?"

"I think," he said in a voice that sounded more than a little strangled, "that Kathil can take care of herself."

"Of course she can," Leliana said. "But you did not travel with her for a year. You did not witness the decisions she had to make. And you have no idea what she has become. I do not believe anyone knows—least of all her. Do not finish the job of breaking her, Jowan. Chance may have shown you mercy, but I will _not_."

She did believe in mercy, but that mercy ended with darkspawn and those like them, who took without giving, who did not bother to fight the devouring hunger that was the end of all life. She remembered Teagan, made a foolish puppet by the whim of a desire demon. Remembered an offer made by the mad cultists in an ice-choked, ruined temple.

Remembered Kathil slipping away from them in those months after the Archdemon died until finally she had just _disappeared_. Remembered fear for her friend—and fear of her.

Jowan sagged. "Every time I talk to her, it goes…badly. It's best that I just keep my mouth shut."

"He does learn." She took the blade from his throat. "You will remember our little talk when you are tempted to pick at her, yes? Ah, and I brought you something." She reached into the bag she had slung over her shoulder and brought out a shallow box about a handspan long. "Shave the beard, Jowan," she said. "You do not yet have the dignity of spirit required to wear it."

He blinked but took the box from her, and Leliana smiled briefly and sheathed her blade. Without another word she turned and headed out; she needed to be back at the palace as soon as possible. She broke into a trot once she reached the street, her shoes scuffing in the packed dirt of the market district roads. She was grateful she was going to be gone from Ferelden before the rains came and turned that dirt into mud; one winter spent in this country was quite _enough_.

And, with the Maker's blessing, perhaps she had intimidated Jowan into behaving himself while she was off in Orlais and Tevinter.

She reached the palace gates and was waved through. Within the bailey, she stopped and inquired as to the whereabouts of the Grey Wardens. She was directed to one of the rooms just off the outer courtyard. "Leliana, my dove!" Zevran called as she stuck her head through the doorway. "You very nearly missed us."

There was a meal being brought, and Leliana grinned. _Clever, Zevran. Very clever._ "I would never," she said. "May I borrow Kathil for a bit?"

There was just the slightest suspicion on Zevran's face. "Only if you return her in one piece."

Kathil looked up from where she had been fussing over Lorn. "Zev, this is _Leliana_. She _likes_ me in one piece." She scratched Lorn's ears and rose. "I'm all yours, at least until we have to leave. Which is soon. Eamon knows about the newest Grey Warden, it seems." She came over to Leliana, stepping over a Mabari who had fallen asleep between the tables and the door.

Leliana took her hand. "That is…unfortunate." She wondered who had told Eamon; she had _planned_ to tell him, but only after Kathil was gone. _Which means I need to do this quickly._

She pulled Kathil out into the courtyard and toward the wellhouse, the small stone building that protected the palace's well. It would be deserted this time of day, secure from prying eyes and ears, and Leliana had "borrowed" the key. Temporarily. She'd need to replace it before sunset.

The inside of the wellhouse was cool and dark, spiders occupying themselves in the shadowy corners with dusty silk. Leliana locked the door after them. Kathil was starting to look concerned, and she crossed her arms.

Those traveling clothes she was wearing had seen better days, trousers patched and one side of the shirt's hem ragged, everything vaguely stained and shabby-looking. It brought back memories of days both brighter and darker, how the mage would always pull out her needle and thread whenever there was something she really didn't want to talk to anyone about. "I have some questions," she said, and almost faltered.

_You must do this. There is no one else who can._

Well. Two other people who could. One would not, and the other would make a bleeding mess of it if he tried. She steeled her resolve. "Kathil. What were you doing for the time you were gone?"

"I told you," the mage said, her dark eyes narrowing. "Traveling. Researching the old roads, and getting myself in trouble on them. Sleeping with other people's wives. You know, the usual."

"Not good enough, dearest." She cocked her head at her friend, firming her mouth. "We both know that is not the entire story."

"Isn't it?" Kathil's voice sharpened, and her face twisted, her scar pulling her mouth open slightly on that side of her face. "And why do you think that?"

"Because I know you." She stepped toward the mage until the space between them might have been crossed with barely a step, but came no closer. She reached for words with the bard's art, searching for the blade she needed to open the secret she could feel between them, ripe and round as a full moon. "I was there, after the Archdemon. I saw you slowly fading away from this world. I was there when you disappeared. I thought you had perhaps done something very foolish." She read the mage's sharp intake of breath, how she turned her face slightly to the side. "And you did, did you not? Though not the sort of foolish I initially thought. Tell me, Kathil. Tell me what you have done that you feel you must gather weapons to you once more."

Kathil's gaze met Leliana's, and the bard could see what Cullen meant when he said he could sometime see the Fade in the eyes of Mages. Something strange moved in those pupils, and the air in the wellhouse chilled. "Do you really want to know?"

"I do."

The mage took a shuddering breath and turned away, stepping back, her head bowing toward her chest. "Do you know what I mean when I speak of old roads?" she asked, her voice quiet.

Leliana shook her head. "Only what you have told me."

"They were a specialty of certain Tevinter mages, who learned of their existence from an order of mages that are not even a memory of a rumor, now." Kathil was not looking at her, instead fixing her gaze on the stones of the wall. "We know them now as places where the Fade and this world overlap, where the Veil is very thin. They are created in places where many souls have crossed from life to death, especially when there is both pain and magic involved. Battlefields. Torture chambers. Hospices. Remember the Brecilian Forest, how haunted it felt? The entire _place_ is an old road. Anyway, the study of old roads is a forbidden one, and for good reason."

"Because things linger on the old roads," Leliana said.

"That and more." Kathil took a shuddering breath. "Lei…do you know what it was I killed, when I put a sword through the Archdemon's neck? Urthemiel was a god of beauty, worshipped by musicians and poets. It _passed through me_. Everything it used to be. Everything it became. There is a _reason_ that we are usually obliterated when we kill an Archdemon. Mortals are not built to withstand what pours into and through us, when the soul of an Old God is liberated from its body." She took a shallow breath. "So I went in search of the old roads, telling myself I was looking for Morrigan. I walked in the footsteps of the Tevinter magisters. I sought to understand what they understood, to see what they saw, to feel what they felt. "

"You sought the Black City." Leliana felt a sort of numb horror stealing fingers around her heart. "Maker's _Breath_."

"I thought that perhaps I could make it all make sense. If I laid my hands on the stones of the Black City, maybe I could understand this…_thing_ I had inside of me." Kathil shook her head. "Instead, I found the presences on the old roads, the wild things that linger on the paths. I bargained with some of them. They asked so _little_ in return for their power, for spells that haven't been cast by mortals in centuries or millennia. Drops of blood. Strands of hair. Tears. Sweat."

The air was so cold in here now that Leliana's breath was visible as she spoke. She tried not to shiver. _Oh, dearest, what have you done?_ "Why would they want those things?"

The mage pressed her lips together so firmly that they went pale. "A connection to the mortal world. A connection to _me_. I am a mage, and a Grey Warden. I am of this world, of the Fade, of the darkspawn, and I have been touched by the soul of an Old God. I am a bridge, Leliana. And some day, one or more of the presences are likely going to decide to cross over. If I am _very_ lucky, they will lose track of time and forget that I am mortal. I believe the power of what I have given them will fade with my death. It's a small hope, at least."

Leliana stared at her friend, her mind whirling. Suddenly, Kathil's claiming of Cullen as her personal Templar made so much _sense_. As did the fact that she felt the need to seal the Templar to her in every way she could think of. "So you gird yourself for war."

"Again. Always. I know I have never been a very good friend, Lei. I wish—" She broke off, and shook her head. "I wish I could be something other than I am. After the Joining I stood at where all of the Warden candidates died, after Alistair married Rima, after Wynne passed…it was too much. So I ran, and found something worse than death." She touched her shoulder, the scarred one. "Wynne is still there in the Fade, I think, or something like her. I've seen her a few times. The last time...she said that the nightmares are attracted to those who are like them." The hand on her shoulder clenched, digging into fabric and flesh beneath. "I don't know exactly what she meant, but I can guess."

All of this was a bit much to absorb. "Wynne is still in the Fade?" Lelianna asked, dismayed.

"I—I just don't _know_, Lei." The mage's jaw clenched. "It might be her. It might be just the spirit that saved her. Whatever it is, it is powerful. She saved me, twice. First when I was Fade-struck in the Tower, and then on the battlefield, in Waking Sea." She shook her head. "Why choose now to press me on this? When I am about to leave—oh. I see, I think."

"I needed to know." She gentled her voice. Asking for any more details now would be counterproductive, and she had what she needed. "And I needed you to be free to leave Denerim if pressing you on the topic led to unforeseen consequences, yes?"

"You mean Cullen and Zevran needed to be free to chase me if I ran," Kathil said, and turned her face towards Leliana. "Lei, I've mentioned that you play very wicked games, haven't I?"

"Occasionally." The air was warming again, though there was still that strange movement in the mage's eyes. "Come here, dearest," she said, and opened her arms.

Kathil hesitated, and then stepped into Leliana's embrace. She was as cold as moonlight in her arms. "I'm going to miss you," the mage said, her voice soft. "Stay safe out there."

Leliana rested her forehead against her friend's. "I will," she said, and one of her hands gently stroked Kathil's back. She almost heard what was between them come back into harmony, a chord played on a harp without strings. "You, too. We will see each other again, Kathil. I promise."

The mage sighed, and her body relaxed against Leliana's. "We'd _better_."

And if this were any other life, and if this mage were any other woman, Leliana would have kissed her then. She was tempted, still. Tempted to forget for a moment everything that had come before, tempted to forget the promise she had made herself years before.

_No more broken women._ Not after Marjolaine and what she had done.

Instead, she let Kathil go. "Time for you to go, dearest," she said. "I will see you to the gate, yes? And head off Eamon, should we see him." She turned to unlock the door, pretending not to see the mage swipe the back of her hand across her eyes.

A few minutes later, the palace gates were closing between Leliana and her friends. Zevran had looked relieved to see them return none the worse for wear; she had rather strong-armed him into cooperating with her in today's venture. It had needed to be done—both parts—and Zevran by his nature would never push Kathil like Leliana would. Alistair would, but he was in no position to do so. And Cullen and Kathil were still far too new to each other.

Jowan would, but with any luck Leliana's interference would make sure that he did not—at least for a time.

She shivered, thinking of what Kathil had told her. The combination of those two mages might be _much_ worse than she had originally thought. She almost wished she could stay. It might be worth suffering through a Fereldan winter, to keep those two as far apart as she could manage.

Not worth possibly losing the trail of the one she was after, however. Kathil and Jowan destroying the south in a misguided attempt to redeem themselves was only a possibility. Tevinter meddling in things it ought to have learned long ago to leave alone was a reality that _must_ be taken care of.

So she turned away from the gates and went into the palace, letting her friends leave, wishing them well.

And hoping that whatever they got up to, it would not end so _very_ badly.

*****

_Zevran:_

Their departure from Denerim was far quieter than their arrival.

All things considered, not a bad thing at all. He watched his Grey Warden carefully as they walked from the palace to the rooms they were about to vacate. She seemed subdued; not about to explode anything or perhaps to tear the fabric of reality into shreds. It was far better than he had feared. Leliana liked to take those calculated risks, which he usually approved of; however, playing dice with the souls of Grey Wardens was a bit rich for his blood.

But the bard wielded guilt and reason like the finest blades; guilt had worked on Cullen and reason had worked on Zevran, and both of them had agreed to let Leliana push Kathil a bit. That there had not been any explosions yet did not mean there would be none at all.

When they reached the rooms to pick up their bags and Jowan, a surprise was waiting for them. Jowan, while they had been gone, had availed himself of a razor. Gone was the unruly beard, and in its place was a hard, pale jaw. He looked at once much more like the young man that Zevran had first met in the basement of Redcliffe Castle, and far less. There were scars on his cheek and jaw that the beard had hidden. Zevran remembered cuts on the blood mage's face, a black eye and split lip. The Redcliffe guards had not treated him with kindness.

"Now there's a face I remember," Cullen muttered when he saw Jowan. "Unfortunately."

Kathil was settling her swordbelt on her waist, twisting the hilt of her sword just so. "Let's get moving," she said. "I want to be well away from Denerim by nightfall. I'm afraid we're walking, gentlemen."

"That is nothing new," Zevran replied, and handed her the pack. "I believe my boots have been on every road Ferelden owns."

"And I'm betting we'll run into darkspawn between here and the Tower. I won't take horses with us if all we're doing is feeding them good horseflesh." She shrugged her pack on. "Let's get out of this damned city."

He could not have agreed more.

So they walked, a pack of warhounds pacing around them, the Tranquil mage Shaw at their back, Cullen falling into his usual place at Kathil's shoulder, Zevran on her other side. Even the most daring inhabitants of the market district kept their distance. Jowan kept his distance from all of them, pulling his shapeless hat down low over his eyes.

_There go the Grey Wardens,_ voices whispered, the wind bringing the words to his ear. _The Hero of Ferelden, in the flesh. Funny, I thought she would be taller._

If they only knew.

They passed through the gates and out into the farmland beyond without incident. Fiann ran ahead of them, darting back and forth with the inexhaustible energy of puppyhood. She picked up rocks and tossed them into the air, took off barking after rabbits, carried sticks around like trophies. The adult Mabari with them viewed the pup's antics with amused tolerance.

On the road once more, with the sky above them and so many fewer watchers to be aware of. He stretched out his legs, and Kathil lengthened her stride to match. "What do you think? A week if we dawdle and kill some darkspawn along the way?" she asked.

"At least," he said, then smiled. "And perhaps that woman of Oghren's is still working at the Spoiled Princess, yes? Perhaps she will help us talk the innkeep into letting us purchase some of the liquor he keeps in the locked cabinets in the basement."

She poked his shoulder with a thin finger. "I've had some of that stuff. It's _awful_."

"But it is a different sort of awful than the usual, no? Just like being on the road again."

"Rocks under our bedrolls, having to suffer your cooking—"

"It is better than yours," he pointed out. "Or Cullen's."

His Grey Warden grimaced. "So _very_ true. Cold nights, waking up with soaked blankets because fog's rolled in overnight, wet socks, Mabari slobber on _everything_. Oh, and don't forget blisters. But—" and here she looked sidelong at him, and there was a light in her dark eyes— "there are compensations."

There were, there always were, and he found that he did not have a regret in the world in that moment.

*****

_Lorn:_

Now _this_ is a proper pack.

They are traveling again, towards his territory (though not his territory for long, his human has told him; instead there will be a new territory, another place made of stone, this one probably not quite so tall but he is sure it will be just as fine) and this time they have more Mabari than humans with them. Beside him, Jeseth hulks along; he is the largest of them, an enforcer sharp of eye and long of tooth. It is his yielding which gave Lorn his place in this pack, alpha as his human is alpha, as his human has always been alpha.

There are darkspawn ahead, as well, and that too is a fine thing. He will show Fiann what it is to be a warhound, to properly rend and tear. She is small yet and her teeth are stubby, but her heart is already fierce. He smells warm metal, cured leather, those with them—mouse-mage, his human's elf, her dust-knight, the human who smells of still water and scorched skin. Crow feathers on the wind, a small slow-running brook choked with weeds, somewhere a dead rat swelling in the sun.

And his human and her smells of lightning and hunger and ice, and something new under all of that, something small. A smell of change.

A smell something like Yvrenne, when he first met her.

His human is carrying pups. Well, one pup; such he has determined is the way of the two-legged, in his opinion _highly_ inefficient. It is a new smell, a very small smell; if he did not know his human so very well he would never have noticed it.

Another pup to teach the proper way of the world! He lifts his head with pride and lets his tongue loll. He will teach it all about kitchens, and darkspawn, and all of the other important things in the world.

He picks up the pace as another scent reaches his nose. They are downwind of darkspawn. He gives a bark of warning and lopes forward.

He hears his human's voice and feels her magic gather, and together they are running towards what waits for them, fierce and fearless and always, always _together_.

*****

_Fear not the wind of wasting  
its howling is not for you  
It's only an echo now within  
the hearts of those just passing through_

_(Beauty is lost in translation  
no savoring what is devoured  
All of us burned down to hunger  
our glory gone)_

—_SJ Tucker, "City of Marrow"_

_*****  
_

**Here ends **_**Unstrung Harmonies**_**, Part Three of **_**Old Roads**_**.**

**

* * *

  
**

_Author's Note: _

And this installment finishes "Unstrung Harmonies"! Next up will be "Quiet Foxes"; look for the first few chapters of that in a couple of weeks. (I'm working on another writing project, one with an Actual Deadline, so this story is taking a back seat to that while I work on it.)

This series now has a title—it's called "Old Roads". I'll be changing the other installment titles to reflect this. (I swear I started out writing a one-shot...)

While I was writing this chapter, the _Awakenings_ expansion was announced, which means I have a dilemma on my hands—I meant to write this series without approaching Bioware's official continuity, but they appear to have gotten ahead of me. (Evil people!) Fortunately, it is likely to take me a while to write "Quiet Foxes", the next installment; there is a distinct possibility that by the time I get to "Pitiless Games", the Amaranthine installment, either Awakenings will be out or I'll have been able to glean enough information about the plot to be able to write around it.

Thank you all for reading, and for being patient!

Just in case anyone is curious about the music I've written this series to, below I've written down the playlist for "Old Roads".

* * *

**Old Roads: a playlist for a mage's path**

Within Without - Over the Rhine (Zevran's theme)

White Light - Vienna Teng

Disarm - Smashing Pumpkins

Enter the Korcari Wilds - DA:O Soundtrack

The World Can Wait - Over the Rhine

Augustine - Vienna Teng (Cullen's theme)

Winterborn - The Cruxshadows (Kathil's theme)

Blood Makes Noise - Suzanne Vega (Jowan's theme)

Twa Corbies - Steeleye Span

Stray Italian Greyhound - Vienna Teng

Dirty Little Secret - Gaia Consort

Recessional - Vienna Teng (Lelianna's theme)

Capitan Wedderburn - Great Big Sea

This Is War - 30 Seconds to Mars

Maps - Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Antebellum - Vienna Teng (Alistair's theme)

Lelianna's Song - DA:O Soundtrack

City of Marrow - S.J. Tucker (Black City theme)


End file.
